The scientific and practical use of umbilical cord blood hematopoietic cells

The review containes data relating to use of umbilical cord blood as alternative source of hematopoietic stem cells for transplantation in patients with hematopoietic disorders. Experimental results suggest that it is feasible to achieve high efficiency gene transfer into primitive and more mature human umbilical cord blood hematopoietic progenitor cells using various recombinant vector systems. Such cells may have important implications for human gene therapy. Cytological investigations showed high qualitative and quantitative characteristics of human hematopoietic progenitor cells, suggesting that cord blood may have an essential advantages over bone marrow as the source of transplantable and marrow-repopulating cells. The modern scientific data and technical potentials prove convincingly (the feasibility and necessity of setting up a cord blood banks instead of existing bone marrow registries.