CORD TISSUE
Tissue of umbilical cord (Wharton’s jelly)
In recent years it is discovered that the umbilical cord substance, Wharton’s jelly, contains stem cells that can turn into other cells of the body. These cells are the type of mesenchymal cells and found in tissue surrounding blood vessels of the umbilical cord. The mesenchymal cells are particularly cells and collected by a special method, which separates them from the tissue of the umbilical cord.
The R&D team of Biohellenika has developed the technology and offers to the parents the maximum number of mesenchymal stem cells from the total length of the umbilical cord.
The method used by Biohellenika was published in the international medical magazine in the Journal of Biological Research in 2011 and the Journal Transfusion Medicine in 2011 and it is different from cryopreserving whole pieces of umbilical cord.
The cryopreservation of umbilical cord segments without prior isolation of cells, a method that may be used by several banks, in a short time, requires no special skills, does not provide the required number of stem cells and more importantly, does not ensure the viability of stem cells after thawing of the segments.
In order to build such a sample would be required to follow the process of cell proliferation after thawing in the future with extra cost.
The mesenchymal stem cells which are located outside and around the vessels of the umbilical cord, can not be collected.
Tissue of umbilical cord (Wharton’s jelly)
Biohellenika exhausting all the possibilities derived by a childs birth proceeds to placenta drainage in order to collect the maximum number of stem cells, besides the classic collection by the puncture of the umbilical cord.
A large number of stem cells still remain inside the placenta after the classic blood collection. For this purpose, the whole placenta is transferred to the laboratory, under specified sterile conditions. The placenta has extended network of vessels where is trapped a large number of stem cells and remain there unused, unless, their collection and procedure follows. Biohellenika using a specific published procedure collects all these cells which are added to the initial classic collection. With this method, a two-fold number of stem cells are ensured, stem cells that otherwise, without this second collection, would be discarded together with the placenta.
The larger amount of stem cells is very important as we have the potential to use the sample more times, and to treat leukemia to an overweight adult. Thus, the greater amount of stem cells is cryopreserved at birth, the greater assurance for the child and its family for their lives.
This special procedure of stem cell collection from the inside of the placenta was awarded at the 15th Pan-Hellenic Transplant Conference, which took place in Thessaloniki in December 2007, was referred to as the most interesting medical publication on internet for one week in February 2008 and was published in the international journal, Transplantation Proceedings 2007, 39 (10): 3380-4. The results were verified for second time with a new publication in international journal Transfusion at March 2011.
