Canadian Cord Blood Biorepository

Canadian Cord Blood Biorepository This page is for general inquiries only; all personal inquiries should be directed to our office. Pe Canada’s premiere next generation cord blood bank.

This article looks at the decade ahead for personalized healthcare and precision medicine. Four Industry leaders give th...
02/13/2020

This article looks at the decade ahead for personalized healthcare and precision medicine. Four Industry leaders give their thoughts on where we have been and where we are going in the decade ahead. The consensus of their opinion is that individuals need to become more engaged in the generation and guardianship of their healthcare information. Artificial Intelligence methods will need to be developed so that this vast amount of data can be interpreted and used in the healthcare of the individual.

Central to this development is an understanding by the individual that their healthcare information is private, belongs to them and must only be used with their permission. This is not the case today where companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple collect information and use it to generate important data sets without the individual’s consent.

Important as well is the quality of the data sets that are generated. One big omission is the lack of longitudinal data sets, meaning that information is not continuous and reflective of the life of the individual. With the participation of individuals, these longitudinal data sets can be generated and used to guide individual health decisions to effect good health outcomes.

Cord blood storage provides a key starting point in the generation of these longitudinal data sets. The stem cells can be analyzed for a variety of health data that includes DNA, RNA and Proteomics. This pristine information will form the basis for all future comparisons in the health care journey of the individual as they interact with the environment, microbes, and chemicals to name a few influences. In summary, indivualized health care is at hand and will be harnessed in the coming decade in concert with AI algorithms. Precision medicine is just around the corner.

Four industry watchers share their thought on what may happen in the next ten years to advance the field of precision medicine and/or genomic medicine.

Check out this article on the effects of stress and the damage it causes to your stem cells.
02/13/2020

Check out this article on the effects of stress and the damage it causes to your stem cells.

Acute stress damages stem cells that control hair and skin colour, a study suggests.

Click on the link below to check out some new developments in stem cell technology.
02/05/2020

Click on the link below to check out some new developments in stem cell technology.

They now plan to do the same thing with nine more patients.

Enjoy the wonders of the invisible world by Martin Oeggerli. I was fascinated by the pictures and was intrigued to see t...
09/11/2018

Enjoy the wonders of the invisible world by Martin Oeggerli. I was fascinated by the pictures and was intrigued to see the depictions of the human microbiome which has become very important in our understanding of the overall influence of nature on our healthy lives. He also shows us cell division in action, a phenomenon we are actively exploring to grow and expand our stored stem cell populations at the CCBR.

Dr. John Akabutu
Medical Director
Canadian Cord Blood bioRepository

Martin Oeggerli is fascinated by small worlds. The Swiss microbiologist uses his microscope to probe the tiniest enclaves of nature, taking his sharp eye for beauty to the nanoscale. Styling himself as a Micronaut—explorer of invisible worlds—Oeggerli creates incredible microscopic photographs u...

Here is an interesting article about the compatibility of stem cells between mother and baby. In this case, the stem cel...
06/01/2018

Here is an interesting article about the compatibility of stem cells between mother and baby. In this case, the stem cells are from the mother to the baby. Why is this possible? A baby in a mother is a very big antigen load that should pose a challenge to the mother's immune system. However,Nature has allowed the baby and the mother to become tolerant of each other during the pregnancy until the birth of the baby. Once the baby is born, the two immune systems go their separate ways and no longer would tolerate each other. This is why mothers are able to tolerate the infant's cord blood stem cells if transplanted into them for therapy. The cord blood stem cells are still fetal tissue therefore the immunological tolerance with the mother remains preserved.
In the attached brief article, a reverse approach was used with the infusion of stem cells from the mother to the baby to repair the infant's blood making apparatus. The baby has a genetic abnormality in the production of hemoglobin, the pigment that carries oxygen to all of our tissues. The baby is missing the ability to make alpha chains which combined with gamma chains make fetal hemoglobin for the baby. After birth, the gamma chains are replaced with beta chains during the first year of life to make the hemoglobin of adults. This baby's condition would make it impossible for survival without hemoglobin production by the bone marrow. The transplant of the mother's blood forming stem cells, if successful, will provide stem cells capable of making alpha chains which will result in the production of hemoglobin. Even a small amount of alpha chain production would be enough to sustain this infant. It is too early yet to know if this innovative and leading edge approach has worked for this baby. The good news is that the baby is healthy and doing well currently
Since the genes at fault are known, it may be possible that they can be corrected using stem cells from the baby via the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system or a variation of it (see my last post below). This approach would result in a permanent cure of the infant's inability to make all of the protein parts that make up the hemoglobin in our red blood cells. Once again, this would be stem cells in action.
The use of the mother's stem cells could provide a cure if it works but also importantly, a partial response would allow a normal life for their infant buying time for our stem cell and gene therapy approaches to mature and become useful as every day tools for human therapies including for this infant.
Yes, the stem cell promise is taking a long time to mature. However, the progress to it's successful deployment has been steadfast and resilient. Cord blood stem cells continue to be discarded in large numbers after the birth of infants. Developments such as this one, should alert us to the near term possibilities of stem cell therapies that are robust and effective and which are destined to change the way human diseases are treated. Saving cord blood stem cells for the infant owners with a potential benefit for mothers and perhaps other family members, should be part of the plan for every delivery in Canada. Once thrown away in the garbage, an opportunity to save potentially life saving stem cells is lost forever.
My admiration goes to my colleagues in California for leading the way in this therapeutic approach to an otherwise untreatable genetic condition.
In my next post, I will discuss the use of cord blood stem cells to treat Autism Spectrum Disorders by some leading Scientific Researchers in United States.The studies are early but deserve our critical attention and assessment of this potential. These studies may help us to understand Autism Spectrum Disorders more fully.
Dr. J. J. Akabutu
Medical Director
CCBR

Doctors treated the fetus, who has alpha thalassemia major, with cells from her mother’s bone marrow.

https://youtu.be/2pp17E4E-O8This is a magnificent video that explains the phenomenon of gene editing. If this science is...
04/26/2018

https://youtu.be/2pp17E4E-O8
This is a magnificent video that explains the phenomenon of gene editing. If this science is applied with stringent ethical guidelines, it will revolutionize how we deal with human diseases. The genetic material from stem cells, such as those from cord blood, will be able to be edited and corrected to remove disease causing genes from the stem cell. These corrected stem cells with the new genes, will then be transplanted back into the owner of the stem cell where they will grow to provide the normal proteins that guide our existence as healthy individuals. The corrected stem cells will first be grown in bioreactors to increase their numbers to provide a healthy dose to the recipient. More research continues to fine tune this system to prevent gene editing in unintended areas of the human genome. Different enzyme systems will also need to be developed to prevent the immune system from destroying the transplanted material. Although this vital step has been taken to improve our ability to manage diseases that have hitherto evaded our approaches, more remains to be done to ensure that gene editing is a truly universal treatment option for all of us.

This animation depicts the CRISPR-Cas9 method for genome editing – a powerful new technology with many applications in biomedical research, including the pot...

This article about the baby advice book industry by a dad who’s job is evaluating self-help books caught our eye. Scienc...
02/16/2018

This article about the baby advice book industry by a dad who’s job is evaluating self-help books caught our eye. Science may not give us a definitive answer about the best way to raise our children, but it has shown that cord blood banking can provide once in a lifetime opportunities for your child.

The long read: Every baffled new parent goes searching for answers in baby manuals. But what they really offer is the reassuring fantasy that life’s most difficult questions have one right answer

We appreciate this racked.com article about changing attitudes towards maternity fashion and the pressures that expectan...
02/01/2018

We appreciate this racked.com article about changing attitudes towards maternity fashion and the pressures that expectant mothers face.

As expectant mothers, you already have a lot on your mind and we want to be one more resource for you while your child is growing. The article is a bit long but we think it's worth the read.

https://www.racked.com/2018/1/30/16928328/maternity-clothes-pregnancy-miscarriage

The prudish, sexy, shaming, expensive history of maternity clothes.

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.medgadget.com%2F2017%2F11%2Fduke-university-heart-patch-shows-promise-r...
12/01/2017

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.medgadget.com%2F2017%2F11%2Fduke-university-heart-patch-shows-promise-repairing-cardiac-tissue-damage.html&h=ATO2Rhqx9wv17gYVFlSR5KXP-m0DnC6nkoAQczJpVhs1brKpuKYhopDr4Vqw75lHxPz1SJ0GqXxtcfems6WK_iaeldB-eeH5n9OBXLgxn2WtfaJdAZbju2Ron09T5aDdy6cYosscp2lRg17SzRPRH1Un_H8xdG9rY0pj0Z8ttNPDnQe1zm_-uiEdzYSQP2aPpOU03f5hzDd2LiKd_Avtn8iB-EdVUjrj8HG1eUXuFRIVf0eO1k9xCp_1FRo7L6GFcyAWZphv53kvw76M6RsIqDhRGdnoV8rQGw

Researchers at Duke University have developed an artificially-engineered patch consisting of fully functional human heart muscle tissue that can be used to

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