Source: Edwin, no changes made.
The Texas Cord Blood Bank (TCBB), a program of GenCure, is one of 13 public cord blood banks in the USA and the official cord blood bank of the state of Texas.
GenCure, launched in 2010, a subsidiary of BioBridge Global, is a non-profit organization focused on enabling the development of cell and tissue based therapies by providing access to source materials, cGMP biomanufacturing experience and clinical research support.
GenCure focuses on regenerative medicine, oncology, orthopedics and dental support through the Texas Cord Blood Bank, a national marrow donor program, apheresis center and a deceased donor tissue bank.
The Texas Cord Blood Bank, established in 2003, now a program of GenCure, is a public bank housed in the BioBridge Global facility that collects cord blood units. Since 2005, it has partnered with hospitals across Texas to collect and store thousands of cord blood units to create a unique statewide source of ethnically diverse, lifesaving cord blood units.
To be used as a transplant, the cord blood unit must match as closely as possible to a patient’s genetic markers. Patients are more likely to match donors from their own ethnic or racial background. TCBB partners with Be The Match, the national marrow donor registry, to help finding matches for patients.
There are more than 12,000 units from TCBB on the Be the Match registry. Another 472 have been sent for transplant. Donated cord blood that doesn’t go into the registry goes to research for new therapies.
“What’s moving to me every time we send out a unit is the thought of the recipient.” … “Knowing it could be going to help, for example, a 2-month-old baby that has leukemia, that’s pretty powerful.”
“One thing that’s unique to us is the ethnic groups in our inventory,” … “Hispanic is the largest representative ethnic background in our inventory.” – Dr. Rogelio Zamilpa, senior director of apheresis and cord blood center at GenCure
“Donate it.” … “It wouldn’t cost you anything. Otherwise, the cord blood is discarded when it could become something lifesaving for another child.” – Franziska, mother of Sedrick with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), who received a life saving cord blood transplant
Sources:
- https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/11/15/1652587/0/en/World-Cord-Blood-Day-raises-awareness-about-cord-blood-donations.html
- https://gencure.org/about-us/history
