Collecting cord blood is simple. However, just like the collection of organs for transplant there are several rules that must be followed in order to ensure the quality and safety of the collection. When these criteria are not met, it can put patients at risk, make the collection useless or potentially destroy the collection. Keeping the cord blood processing laboratory clean, sanitized, and disinfected is crucial to product quality and safety. Although there is industry guidance for cleaning procedures, laboratory practices often vary depending on location, regulatory requirements, product type, and facility design. In addition, cord blood banks must always have an eye on the future and the potential new applications for cord blood stem cells in regenerative medicine, immunotherapy, expansion, etc. These future applications will have new requirements, yet the cord blood to be used for those applications is probably being collected now. Hence, there is a constant need to be one step ahead of the requirements and to think strategically about your cord blood bank's collection processing in the laboratory.

How can your cord blood bank be prepared for the new demands of the industry? Imagine the disappointment if one of your clients who required their collection in the future for one of these new therapies was refused simply because the processing did not meet requirements. Are you providing the best in cord blood processing for your clients and potential patients? 

In this edition of Share the Science, we welcome Ed Brindle who is Director of Quality and Regulatory Affairs for Insception Lifebank, co-chair of both the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) standards committee and the Cord Blood Processing Standards’ Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT) committee. He will highlight the best practices used by successful cord blood processing laboratories and illustrates how you can implement them at your facility. The discussion will also look to the future and consider the implications of potential advances in cord research on your lab's cord blood collection criteria and processing. 

As an attendee of this webinar, you will also have an opportunity to ask questions directly to Mr. Brindle. 

This informative session is presented by Ed Brindle. With more than 20 years combined experience in clinical laboratory sciences and cellular therapies both in United Kingdom and Canada, Mr. Brindle is the Director of Quality and Regulatory Affairs for Insception Lifebank. Mr. Brindle is also co-chair of both the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) standards committee and the Cord Blood Processing Standards’ Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy (FACT) committee.

Mr. Brindle is a Qualified NetCord FACT Cord Blood Processing Inspector and actively carries out inspections of International FACT Accredited Cord Blood Banks for compliance to current NetCord FACT Standards. He is also an active member of the Cord Blood Processing standards committee. In addition, Mr. Brindle is active as a Cord Blood and CT assessor with the AABB. He routinely carries out the assessment of various National and International Cell therapy facilities to ensure compliance with the current AABB Cellular Therapy Standards.​

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​We wish to thank Ed Brindle for volunteering his time to speak on
Share the Science and sharing his valuable insight on cord blood collection processing.
We also wish to thank our generous sponsors, Mediware Inc., who continue
to support cord blood education through our “Share the Science” series.

"Promise" This is the key word when discussing the latest research using cord blood to potentially treat autism. Scientists have made tremendous gains in this area of medicine; however, we are far from definitive answers regarding a treatment for autism. In this hunt for a viable treatment, it would seem that cord blood is critical.

Solving the autism riddle has become urgent and critical as experts have suggested that the number of cases has increased significantly in recent years. In 2016, the Center for Disease Control - Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network estimated that autism was diagnosed in 1 of every 68 births. They broke down the statistics further stating that this was a significant increase over the previous report from 2004 when it was estimated that autism was diagnosed in 1 of 125 births.

​You can read more about the CDC's findings here.

These statistics are important as they highlight the urgency of the situation and the critical need for a viable treatment that can be used across a wide range of populations. A "promise" in research at this point is thus very encouraging and merits further exploration.  

Although there are still many questions regarding using cord blood to treat autism, we are excited to see new research from various angles being brought forth with enthusiasm. Most recently, Dr. Michael Chez of the Sutter Institute for Medical Research published his long-awaited results from a placebo-controlled, crossover study analyzing the use of cord blood to potentially treat autism.

This study was significant because it was the first randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial performed in the United States to assess the feasibility of treating autistic children by using their own newborn cord blood harvested from their banked umbilical cord. In addition to confirming the safety of using cord blood, the results of the study indicated improvements in socialization and language using the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale for Socialization. According to Dr. Chez, patients "showed significant improvement after 12 weeks of cord blood treatment over placebo." 
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• Read more about Dr. Chez's exciting autism study here:  "Cord Blood Stem Cell Study Shows Promise for Autism"

A discussion on cord blood research for autism would not be complete without mentioning the work of Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg from the Duke Center for Autism and Brain Development, Department of Pediatrics and Carolinas Cord Blood Bank. We highly recommend that all of our readers take a moment to watch a presentation made by Dr. Kurtzberg at a live Share the Science event during the AABB conference last year (watch a webinar of this presentation here). Dr. Kurtzberg is well known for her research using cord blood to potentially treat autism, cerebral palsy and other genetic and/or acquired brain diseases.  Her presentation provides a great overview of her own work and gives the listener greater perspective on where the research is going next. 

• Watch Dr. Kurtzberg's presentation via an online webinar: “Novel applications of cord blood derived therapies for genetic and acquired brain diseases.”

As research continues, we know that there are many questions. There need to be questions. Cord blood is not a cure-all; however, it is clear that it has huge potential in regenerative medicine (for autism, cerebral palsy and more) in addition to 80+ current uses, namely for blood cancers. We are encouraged that cord blood shows promise in treating autism as is evident from both Dr. Kurtzberg's and Dr. Chez's work.  We look forward to seeing the next phase of progress in this fascinating area of autism research and regenerative medicine.