Royan Institute Makes Saving Umbilical Cord Blood Possible for All Iranians
“All citizens have the possibility to use cord blood storage and they can help maintain the health of their family members by doing so,” Masoumeh Nouri said on the sidelines of a training meeting of technical experts of the cord blood bank of the company.
She underlined the importance of cord blood storage, noting, “Cord blood storage is more important for those people whose relatives have various chronic non-communicable blood diseases and immunodeficiency.”
Nouri stressed that medical science will move from drug therapy to cell therapy in the future which shows the importance of Royan's measures, adding, “Cord blood storage bank is a service which has been provided in pace with advanced countries and with the help of Iranian experts.”
She stated that Royan Institute for Stem Cell Technology has been active in Iran for over 15 years, adding, “In this period, as the first and largest blood bank in the Middle East, more than 180,000 cord blood samples have been stored.”
Relevant reports said in February that an Iranian technological company has so far performed some 250 transplants on cord blood stem cells.
“We have so far performed about 250 stem cell transplants using umbilical cord blood stem cells, especially in blood diseases,” said Morteza Zarrabi, the managing director of the company.
Clinical trials with stem cells are also being conducted for non-blood diseases such as cerebral palsy, autism, and arthritis, he added.
Zarrabi further said that umbilical cord blood has received much attention in recent years as it is full of hematopoietic stem cells.
“The cord blood was previously discarded as a biological waste, but later it was found that the blood contains hematopoietic stem cells,” Zarrabi highlighted, adding, “If the cells are collected, they can be used in treatment of diseases of blood origin.”
“Stem cells have basically the characteristic that if they replace the damaged tissues, they can repair the damaged cells. That is why they have become very important,” he added.
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