Storing the cord blood is the best option
There are many stem cells banks and cord blood banks around the United Kingdom or even in the world, but they do not all work the same way and some differentiate themselves.
A few of these companies for example do cord blood storage and keep all the blood taken from the cord blood at the birth of the newborn baby.
Some stem cell banks and cord blood bank companies in the United Kingdom are now also offering to store what we call Mesenchymal Stem Cells as well as the Hematopoietic Stem Cells for a separate cost. It is important to notice though that these types of stem cells are found in the cord blood.
In order to guarantee a high viability and the best quality possible, the cord blood is usually taken and stored very quickly as delays caused by tests and other processes tend to reduce the viability of the cord blood and the stem cells extracted.
Many studies support this quick storing as they came to point out that a too lengthy processing time using common extraction methods will usually result in a loss of stem cells which means that there will not be as many extracted as hoped.
The Study of stem cells and cord blood is on fast tracks and is proving to already lead to new discoveries from time to time. A good example of a recent discovery is what is called the VSEL which means very small embryonic-like stem cells. Those VSELs are apparently released in the blood during injuries on organs or tissue, and it seems that they contain features very close to embryonic type stem cells which would make VSELs a very interesting tool to fix body damages.
The main problem or difficulty when extracting stem cells is that it seems those VSELs are lost if the stem cells are extracted with the use of a centrifuge. It is interesting to notice that a centrifuge is usually the type of tool used to extract stem cells from blood.
Extracting and storing the whole cord blood at the time of birth is a guarantee that you will have all the possibilities in the future if new treatments are found in the coming years and need other types of cells that can be found in the cord blood. Even if only extracting the stem cells and storing them is often going to be cheaper, you may not benefit from future treatments or discoveries because the other cells were not stored.
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