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Giving Families Hope
for Longer Healthier Lives

By banking your baby's stem cells, your child and family can have access to better options for medical treatments or cures for cancers, as well as possible future treatments for conditions such as heart disease, juvenile diabetes, and brain injury.

"Diversity of Stem Cells Animation"
Stem cells from the umbilical cord and cord blood have distinct benefits compared to adult stem cells from bone marrow.

Doheney Family

"Brain Animation"
Nearly 1.4 million people in the U.S. sustain a serious form of brain injury called traumatic brain injury (TBI) every year.

The History of Cord Blood Banking

1974 First report on stem/progenitor cells in human cord blood.
1980's Cord blood shown to have similar attributes as bone marrow and recommended to be used as a bone marrow alternative for use in transplantation.
1988 First successful cord blood transplant to regenerate blood and immune cells in Paris, France on a six-year-old boy suffering from Fanconi's Anemia, a blood disorder.
1992 Cord Blood Registry's laboratory is founded in Tucson, Arizona.
1993 First unrelated cord blood transplant at Duke University.
1994 Dr. David Harris, noted cord blood expert and scientific director of Cord Blood Registry, publishes his first cord blood article.
1995 Cord Blood Registry opens corporate headquarters in San Mateo, CA.
1996 First U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Investigational New Drug (IND) for cord blood - NIH/National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLB) Sponsored Cord Blood Transplantation Study (COBLT).
1996 Cord Blood Registry begins Designated Transplant Program (DTP) (SM) to provide free cord blood banking for families with a medical need.
1997 A successful cord blood transplant is performed on a 46-year-old man with chronic myelogenous leukemia, a type of cancer, during a clinical trial using cord blood that was expanded ex vivo.
1997 Research is published showing that the one-year survival rate is more than twice as high if the patient receives a cord blood stem cell transplant from a relative (63 percent) vs. an unrelated cord blood stem cell transplant (29 percent).
1997 Cord Blood Registry publishes the highest percent mononuclear cell recovery rate in the industry-99 percent.
1998 Cord blood stem cells proven to be viable after fifteen years.
1998 Cord Blood Registry becomes first family bank to be accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB).
1998 First successful unrelated cord blood transplant to treat a child with sickle cell anemia, a blood disorder, at the Emory University Department of Pediatrics. The child is cured.
2001 Studies show that cord blood is a suitable alternative to bone marrow for treatment of adults with diseases treatable with a stem cell transplant.
2002 Cord Blood Registry publishes 1 percent contamination rate-lowest in the industry.
2004 Institute of Medicine (IOM) begins yearlong study to make recommendations for a national cord blood program.
2004 Illinois becomes first state to enact legislation to mandate that expectant parents have the option to donate their baby's cord blood to a public bank at no cost.
2005 Doctors initiate emerging use of cord blood stem cells to treat brain damage, diabetes, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, and stroke.
2005 Cord Blood Registry provides cord blood stem cells to clients for use in infusions in children with anoxic brain injury, cerebral palsy and traumatic brain injury.
2005 Researchers begin clinical trial using autologous (one's own) cord blood stem cells to treat Type 1 Diabetes.
2005 Researchers' findings prove that primitive pluripotent "embryonic like" stem cells are present in cord blood.
2005 Researchers around the world begin to explore techniques that will optimize the benefits of cord blood stem cells by researching cell expansion technologies, the process by which cells from cord blood are multiplied or expanded, which may enable families to use samples for more than one treatment.
2005 Cord Blood Registry opens new, state of the art, high capacity laboratory and storage facility.
2005 United States Congress passes national cord blood legislation. The report language accompanying the Stem Cell Research and Therapeutic Act of 2005 (H.R. 2520) supports the IOM recommendation to ensure that all pregnant women are provided with fair and balanced information about private banking, directed donation or donation to a public bank. The legislation seeks to create a national inventory of 150,000 high quality public cord blood samples.
2005 Research shows that by age 70, the likelihood of needing an autologous stem cell transplant is 1 in 400 and the odds of being a candidate for either an allogeneic or autologous transplant is 1 in 200. This is based on diseases currently treated with stem cells.
2006 A study reveals that only one-third of expectant mothers are aware of cord blood banking and eighty-four percent of patients who were aware, expect their healthcare provider to answer their cord blood banking questions.
2006 Cord Blood Registry launches a company wide initiative called Principles in Action® (SM), which establishes principles to ensure that Cord Blood Registry operations maintain alignment with established laws, regulatory guidelines and marketing standards in both interactions and communications with healthcare professionals and consumers.
2007 More than 8,000 total cord blood stem cell transplants have been performed worldwide.
2007 Cord Blood Registry preserves cord blood stem cell samples from more than 190,000 newborns throughout the world.
2007 First report of autologous cord blood transplantation in the treatment of a child with leukemia.
2007 Cord blood is currently being used to treat approximately 70 life-threatening diseases.
2008 Cord Blood Registry has provided 105 samples for client transplants, more than any other family bank.
Banking cord blood does not guarantee that the cells will provide a cure or be applicable for every situation. For inherited genetic conditions, the child will not be able to use his or her own stem cells. A matched sibling's stem cells would be the first choice. Ultimate use will be determined by the treating physician. Treatment for brain injury and juvenile diabetes is experimental and currently requires the use of your own cord blood. Medical treatments using family banked cord tissue are in early research and are not available today; there is no guarantee that therapies will be developed in the future.
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