views
CHENNAI: At a time when private stem cell banks are springing up across the country, promising “a healthy future” for your child through the preservation of stem cells from umbilical cord blood, Dr Alok Srivastava, Head of the Department of Haematology, CMCVellore said that “cord blood banking can be misused.” Cautioning that at the moment there is little or no scientific evidence of regeneration in a normal medium, he said that no procedure has been standardised till now.“There’s been a lot of hype about the kind of results that can be achieved in the future, but as of now, it remains something that might become viable in the future,” he said, criticising the aggressive publicity made by stem cell banks that border on being “misleading.” While the first cord blood banking procedure was done in 1988, there have been over 25,000 done till date and over 100 cord blood banks in existence, globally. The answer, he felt, lay in the establishment of public stem cell banks. “Across the west, public cord blood banks are working effectively and have got good response,” he added. At present, private stem cell banks charge as much as a few lakhs to extract stem cells from your child’s umbilical cord and an additional sum of approx Rs 20,000 for storage. Most of this is done with claims of the rapid advances in regenerating an eye or other organs by specialists across the world.People investing with the belief that when their child needs an organ or blood, this will help them. This is something of a “hope more than fact” now, said Dr Srivastava, on the sidelines of the Jeevan Oration held on Saturday.Srivastava also mentioned that the regulatory boards in America and the UK clearly stated that people may give their child’s umbilical cord to a bank with the full knowledge that no guaranteed returns existed at present. “In India, there is no regulatory process nor is there any defined body to control companies from misleading the public when it comes to stem cell banking,” said the pioneer, who has mentored many of the country’s top haemotologists.After 13 months, Chennai’s stem cell bank gets JeevanIt’s been 13 months since they closed down temporarily, but thanks to a surge in funding, the Jeevan Stem Cell Bank, a public bank, is back in business as of November 19. “We have received close to Rs 60 lakh in funding from various donors and we have decided to begin our service again,” said Dr Srinivasan P, Chairman and Managing Trustee. The bank that was started in 2008 with an investment of `1.6 crore, had about 600 units of stem cells from umbilical cord blood when they suspended activities in October last year. Private stem cell banking was also initiated to support the costs of the public stem cell bank, he added. With the extraction process alone costing between Rs 25 to 30,000, this funding will be sufficient for an additional 200 units, he reckoned. “We have an ambitious goal of collecting 30,000 units soon. This will address over 80 per cent of the demand we have,” he added.
Comments
0 comment