Umbilical Stem Cells Therapy - A Gift of Modern Science

With the daily advances in modern science, it has now been possible to treat all kinds of dreadful diseases. One such discovery in modern science has been in the treatment of diseases with the help of stem cells.

In a stem cell therapy, healthy stem cells, either of the patient or a donor are transplanted in the body of a person who is suffering from cancer. These stem cells replace old and damaged cells, which in turn helps to cure cancer such as leukemia and myeloma.

These stem cell therapies differ from the kinds of stem cells being used in the transplant. The basic types of stem cell transplants that take place today are:

• Adult Stem cell Transplant, a therapy which uses Bone marrow Stem cells

• Adult Stem cell Transplant that uses Peripheral Blood Stem Cells

• Umbilical Stem Cells Transplant which utilizes umbilical blood cord stem cells

These stem cell transplants are either Allogeneic transplants or Autologous transplants. However, in all the above-mentioned therapies, the Umbilical stem cells transplant can be really considered as a gift of modern science to humanity. Umbilical stem cells are less capable of getting rejected than either of peripheral blood or bone marrow stem cell transplants.

This is because umbilical stem cells are not fully developed and lack features prone to be recognized and attacked by the recipient’s immune system. Moreover, umbilical stem cells have advanced immune cells that after transplantation will not attack a recipient’s body. This exclusive feature makes umbilical stem cells free from causing any graft versus host diseases.

The resource of Umbilical stem cells is also one of the major reasons on why this therapy really stands out from other stem cell therapies. As pointed out by critics of stem cell therapies, Umbilical stem cells therapy does not involve the destruction of fertilized eggs and human embryos. In contrast, in an umbilical stem cells transplant, umbilical blood cord cells being used are primarily extracted from newly born infants.

This process is done immediately after the delivery of a newborn child. The umbilical cord is fasten, fixed with a clamp, and is then cut to separate the child from the mother. This umbilical cord, which is generally discarded as waste, contains a large number of umbilical stem cells that are then used in transplants and in curing diseases.

These umbilical stem cells collected from umbilical cords are now being used to treat more than 70 hematologic diseases (diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs) including certain types of anemia and leukemia. Research has also indicated that umbilical stem cells are more promising than adult stem cells in treating diseases.

Moreover, Umbilical stem cells also have properties similar to those of embryonic stem cells (cells derived from embryos), which can develop in all types of cells and thus, are useful to treat all types of diseases.

Thus to sum up, due to their intrinsic features and conventional resource and storage abilities, umbilical stem cells are definitely a gift of modern science to humanity and are also now regarded as the future of stem cell therapies.

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