Research & Developments

Professor Zhan-guo Li has worked with a team of researchers from Peking University People’s Hospital, China, to carry out a laboratory study in which cord blood stem cells were used to suppress inflammation and weaken the disease. Professor Li said, “Very little is known about umbilical cord MSCs, and there has been no previous report…

Three more kiwi children are set to benefit from a cord blood lung study currently underway in Melbourne. Led by Professor Bob Williamson at the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Medicine, the study is using umbilical cord blood to treat Cystic Fibrosis an inherited disease in which a thick mucus clogs the lungs, making it…

In February 2010, a study reporting the successful treatment of spinal cord injury in dogs using cord blood was released – with researchers confident that the this technique has many potential applications in the treatment of human spinal cord injury. While previous research on spinal cord injury has typically used rats, this study used dogs…

Stem cells that could one day provide therapeutic options for muscle and bone disorders can be easily harvested from the umbilical cord, just as the blood that goes through it provides precursor cells to treat some blood disorders, said University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers in the online version of the Journal of Biomedicine…

A study initiated by the World Health Organization and published in the May Journal of the American Medical Association shows that stem cell transplantation has become an accepted therapy worldwide and that the majority of transplant patients received a source of their own (autologous) stem cells. This global study evaluated the more than 50,000 stem…

The O’Neill family from Cambridge are the first New Zealanders to take part in a ground breaking medical study into cystic fibrosis, thanks to the generosity of CordBank. The O’Neills decided to bank the cord blood of their second son, Lenny, in the hope that it may one day be able to help treat his…

A foundation established by Julian Robertson, New Zealand’s first honorary knight and prominent philanthropist, has given $10.2 million to Duke University in the USA to advance the use of cord blood as a therapy. Robertson, who is renowned for his philanthropy and investment in New Zealand, has over the last 15 years developed two luxury…

Major news outlets recently reported research demonstrating that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), a specific type of stem cell with unique properties, restored transparency to the cloudy corneas of laboratory mice.  The data, presented by researchers during the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting in December 2009, suggests that transplantation of umbilical MSCs could be…