title: Umbilical Cord Blood Banking for Transplantation in Morocco: Problems and opportunities.
abstract: Since the success of the first umbilical cord blood (UCB) transplantation in a child with Fanconi anaemia in 1989, great interests have emerged for this source of stem cells. UCB provides an unlimited source of ethnically diverse stem cells and is an alternative for bone marrow (BM) and peripheral blood (PB) haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Thus, UCB and manipulated stem cells are now collected and banked according to international accreditation standards for listing on registries allowing rapid search and accessibility worldwide. This work aims to identify problems limiting the creation of a Moroccan cord blood bank and to highlight opportunities and issues of a new legislation promoting additional applications of cell therapy.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Cellules Souches et Thérapie Cellulaire, Institut Pasteur Maroc, Casablanca, 1 Place Pasteur, 20360 Casablanca, Morocco.
authors.forename: Loubna
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mazini
authors.affiliation: Service Gynécologie Obstétrique, Matérnité Lalla Meryem B, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire (CHU) Ibn Rochd, Casablanca, Morocco. ; Both the authors equally contributed to this work.
authors.forename: Nourredine
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Matar
authors.affiliation: Service Gynécologie Obstétrique, Maternité Lalla Meryem A, CHU Ibn Rochd, Casablanca, Morocco. ; Both the authors equally contributed to this work.
authors.forename: Said
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bouhya
authors.affiliation: Community Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University , Cairo, Egypt, ; National Research Centre , Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: Diaa
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Marzouk
authors.affiliation: Community Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine, Ain Shams University , Cairo, Egypt, ; National Research Centre , Cairo, Egypt.
authors.forename: Wagida
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Anwar
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire Cellules Souches et Thérapie Cellulaire, Institut Pasteur Maroc, Casablanca, 1 Place Pasteur, 20360 Casablanca, Morocco.
authors.forename: Meriem
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Khyatti
keywords: Legislation; Morocco; Related donor; Umbilical Cord Blood Banking; Unrelated donor