StemLife attends Cord Blood Transplantation Conference in Biopolis, Singapore (1)

The StemLife team supported the organizers and attended the "Short course on Cord Blood Transplantation" meeting held today in Singapore's most prestigious research facility Biopolis (equivalent to the NIH for the lion city). Co-organized by Johns Hopkins, National University Hospital, Singapore Cord Blood Bank (SCBB) and the local Society of Haematology, it was quite a successful turnout of speakers and attendees who provided a lively audience.

Guest speakers today included Prof. Eliane Gluckman (1st cord blood stem cell transplanter), Prof. EJ Schpall (MD Anderson, FACT-Netcord accreditation), Prof. Takahashi of Tokyo University, Prof. CK Li from Prince of Wales Hospital Hong Kong, Prof. Ian McNeice, Johns Hopkins Singapore. Local speakers included Singapore's well known haem-oncologists Dr. Tan Ah Moy, Dr. Tan Poh Lin and Dr. William Hwang (now medical director of SCBB) and Dr. Michael Choi of Viacell Singapore.

Attendees included a collection of representatives of cord blood banks (largest stem cell company turnout from StemLife!), doctors from local hospitals and interested physicians and some students.

The seminars revolved largely around the results of cord blood stem cell transplantation since the first one performed by Prof. Gluckman, it is quite clear that the process of transplantation has been refined and improved tremendously. The data from her talk showed that unrelated donor cord blood stem cell transplants were as good as or better than proceeding with unmatched, unrelated bone marrow transplants. Nucleated cell number is still used as the transplant indicator as the correlation with CD34+ cells in cord blood was still tenuous, and the Gluckman recommendation was that at least 2x10e7 NC/Kg at infusion must be obtained for a greater chance of success in malignant diseases (StemLife derives its cut-off value from this recommendation). A member of a pharmaceutical group from India raised the question if she would use a unit which was contaminated with bacteria, given that it could be treated with antibiotics. Prof. Gluckman answered that she would not accept nor use the unit for fear of an adverse and unpredictable effect, which could lead to the death of the patient.

Also discussed were new protocols in cord blood transplantation using double bags of cord blood stem cells which should be as closely matched as possible and have shown promising results although the procedure still requires refinement. Prof. Gluckman's conclusion was that "cord blood is a unique resource for transplantation, regenerative medicine and scientific research, and for this purpose, there is an increasing need for the number of quality units stored".

Prof. EJ Schpall's talk centred largely on FACT-Netcord Accreditation, which is probably most applicable to the public banks who wish to trade their units internationally. She was quite clear on the fact that "public banks" around the world were in competition to "sell" the most number of units for transplantation (USD 21,000 per unit). A high barrier of entry is created through complying with standards and required protocols. She also stressed that FACT only accepts banks storing in cryobags and do not accept vials or any other form of storage.

This criteria would immediately eliminate banks storing their units in vials from participating in FACT accreditation or wishing to join Netcord in the future.