Banking Stem Cells

Umbilical cord blood is the blood that remains in a baby’s umbilical cord and placenta after the childbirth and the umbilical cord has been cut following childbirth. Umbilical cord blood is a rich source of hematopoietic stem cells that are similar to those found in the bone marrow and have the ability to develop into all the different blood cell types creating the blood and immune system.

Hematopoietic stem cells are used for transplantation to reconstitute the blood and immune system in numerous malignant and non-malignant conditions like Leukemias, Fanconi anemia, Sickle cell disease, Thalassemia, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, Chronic granulomatous disease to name a few. Demand for umbilical cord blood transplants is increasing as the hematopoietic stem cells from umbilical cord blood are biologically naïve, more flexible and easily available as compared to bone marrow derived hematopoietic stem cells.

Once you have enrolled with Cryo Stemcell for preserving your baby’s umbilical cord blood a specially designed sample collection kit would be handed over to you. At the time of delivery, you would need to hand over the sample collection kit to your delivering doctor. The collection of umbilical cord blood of your new born baby is safe and painless to the delivering mother and the baby.

After the childbirth, your baby’s umbilical cord is clamped and cut. A sterile needle is inserted into the umbilical cord to collect the umbilical cord blood. Post collection of umbilical cord blood will be cleaned and placed in a special storage device provided within the sample collection kit. The entire sample collection process takes about five to ten minutes.

Once collected, the sample is dispatched in the sample collection kit by our sample collection team using the services of a specialized medical courier services provider for further processing in our state-of-the-art laboratory. After the sample arrives at our lab, the cord blood would be tested for various infectious diseases (HIV, Hepatitis, Syphilis, Cytomegalovirus and HTLV I/II virus etc.) and upon ensuring the negative status of the sample, the umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord are processed in our Class-10000 clean room facility to isolate stem cells and PRP depending on the stem cell banking plan that you would have chosen.

Our laboratory operates 7 days a week, 365 days a year to process and cryopreserve stem cells from umbilical cord blood and umbilical cord as soon as they reach our lab. Once, the stem cells are isolated, they are transferred into multiple cryo vials (4 cryo vials for umbilical cord blood stem cells, 1 cryo vial for umbilical cord derived stem cells and 1 cryo vial for PRP) for cryopreservation in liquid phase nitrogen.

A comprehensive report detailing the cell count of hematopoietic stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells and PRP along with the cell viability percentage would be shared with you within few weeks from the time of sample collection. A unique alphanumeric code is assigned for each sample for efficient tracking and retrieval of stem cells in future.