THE LONDON CORD-BLOOD BANK

Cord blood (CB) contains a sufficient number of haemopoietic progenito r cells and can be used as an alternative to bone marrow transplantati on, To date, a number of transplants using cord blood-derived stem cel ls from HLA-identical siblings and unrelated donors have been successf ully performed. However, only approximately 30% of patients have an HL A-identical sibling while the rest are reliant on finding an HLA-compa tible unrelated donor, This is particularly difficult for patients fro m ethnic minorities since the majority of unrelated bone marrow donor volunteers are from Caucasoid ancestry. The London Cord Blood Bank was established to provide an additional source of stem cells for all pat ients requiring bone marrow transplantation.