golodhendil
Active Member
^ cord blood contains haematopoietic (blood) stem cells, and there are already current therapies (eg bone marrow transplant) that use HSC to treat blood/immune diseases and cancers. So the banked cord blood is "useful" whether or not iPS technologies come to fruition (though most medical opinion says that it is not very beneficial to pay money to put cord blood in private banks unless your family has an identified genetic risk for certain diseases).
If iPS/ stem cell therapy becomes a reality, you would be able to use your skin cell or hair cell to generate stem cells for transplant, so it would only "compete" with therapies using HSC (of course, having HSC already available is easier and better than having to generate the stem cells and then direct their differentiation into the proper cell types).
If iPS/ stem cell therapy becomes a reality, you would be able to use your skin cell or hair cell to generate stem cells for transplant, so it would only "compete" with therapies using HSC (of course, having HSC already available is easier and better than having to generate the stem cells and then direct their differentiation into the proper cell types).