San Diego Bloodbank&apos;s cold storage of cassettes of cord and placenta blood.
San Diego Blood Bank’s cold storage cassettes of cord and placenta blood. NELVIN C. CEPEDA • U-T

Though a newborn’s placenta and umbilical cord contain blood-forming stem cells that can be used to treat leukemia, lymphoma and other blood diseases, the valuable tissue is often discarded unless parents pay thousands to have it privately preserved.

A revived program by the San Diego Blood Bank aims to change that. The blood bank is working with local hospitals to collect unwanted umbilical cords and is applying to the federal government for a special license that would allow doctors to use the cords with less red tape than ever before.

Since April, the blood bank has collected 57 umbilical cords and placentas from Scripps Mercy Hospital and San Diego Naval Medical Center and is freezing them in a large tank filled with liquid nitrogen where they are waiting until they are needed.

Though transplant is the main use of collected cord blood today, science is investigating its stem cells for other therapies. Because the immature cells can develop into many different types of cells, scientists believe they can be used for many purposes beyond cancer treatment.

The National Institutes of Health lists 158 open clinical trials that mention cord blood for treating conditions from autism and dementia to stroke and traumatic brain injury.

“I don’t think everybody realizes the potential of where regenerative medicine could actually go,” said David Wellis, the blood bank’s incoming chief executive.

Wellis, who holds a doctorate in cell biology from Emory University, has worked at a range of biotechnology companies throughout his career.

Not the first time

San Diego Blood Bank first launched a cord blood banking program in 1997 and collected more than 2,000 cords from local hospitals. It suspended its efforts in 2001, and only about 150 of the cords have been used; the rest remain in deep freeze storage.

Ramona Walker, the bank’s outgoing chief executive, said the blood bank got ahead of the medical community with the initial effort.

“It made a lot of intellectual sense in 1997, but we found out that the technology and the practice just wasn’t there yet,” Walker said.

But things have changed since 2001. Now, for example, science has settled on the minimum number of stem cells that should be present in a batch of cord blood in order for it to be eligible for transplant. The past decade has also provided better information on what characteristics make a cord blood sample a good match for a specific patient, Walker said.

Regulation has also matured. In 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began licensing cord blood as a biological product. Until then, doctors and researchers were only able to use cord blood under the FDA’s investigational new drug program, which requires a formal application process and specific approval. By comparison, doctors now are free to order and use licensed cord blood for approved conditions without additional approval.

So far, the FDA has granted five cord blood licenses; San Diego Blood Bank has requested its own, hoping to win approval in 2014.

Walker and Wellis said these developments give them the confidence to resume cord blood collection.


