title: Umbilical cord blood: lessons learned and lingering challenges after more than 20 years of basic and clinical research.
abstract: During the last 23 years, cord blood research has played important roles both in experimental and clinical hematology. Cord blood-derived hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells have been shown to possess particular biological features and their study has been very important in our understanding of hematopoietic development. Today, >20,000 umbilical cord blood (UCB) transplants have been performed worldwide and ∼460,000 UCB units are being stored in >47 UCB banks worldwide. Here a brief overview on some of the most relevant issues regarding cord blood research is presented.
authors.affiliation: Oncology Research Unit, Oncology Hospital, National Medical Center, IMSS, Mexico, D.F., Mexico. hmayaniv@prodigy.net.mx
authors.forename: Hector
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mayani
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D035843:Biomedical Research; D001771:Blood Banks; D005312:Fetal Blood / Q000166:cytology / Q000637:transplantation*; D018380:Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation; D006412:Hematopoietic Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology; D006801:Humans; D007938:Leukemia / Q000628:therapy; D008659:Metabolic Diseases / Q000628:therapy; D014015:Tissue Banks