Establishment of Public Cord Blood Bank in Taiwan: A 5 Years Experiment in HealthBanks Biotech Company

Background: Cord blood (CB) is becoming an important source of stem cell for hematopoietic reconstitution. Allogenic CB transplantations are increasing world-wide, but government does not grant funding for public CB banking.
HealthBanks Biotech began to provide public CB banking service since 2004. Management of public CB bank, including donor recruitment, collection, processing, testing and cryopreservation, is completely separated from private bank. Public and private CBU inventories are not commingled, and private CBU cannot be converted into public. Only public CBU are listed on public registries and BMDW. This study is based on the public inventories generated at the AABB and CAP accredited HealthBanks Cord Blood Bank during the first 5 years of activities. Method: From June 2004 to Dec. 2008, 4279 pregnant mothers have been enrolled and 3330 CBU with qualified informed consent, maternal blood specimen and CB collection volume are processed within 48 hours of collection. The buffy coat fraction was prepared by HES sedimentation, two-step centrifugation procedure and manual extraction, followed by addition of cryoprotectant and storing the CBU into BioArchive. HLA type, hemoglobinopathy analysis, CFU assay, blood type, TNC number, CD34+ cell percentage and viability are performed during CBU testing. Maternal blood collected 48 hours before or after delivery is tested for infectious disease markers. All informed consents are completed before delivery. Completion of consent and questionnaire are performed by nursing consultant in a private area during consultation. Result: 2950 cryopreserved CBUs (85.58%) with qualified family health questionnaire and that are compliant with international standards were listed on BMDW website. Ethnic analysis indicates 87.77% donor’s parents are Taiwanese/Hakka. The main reasons for discarding CBU are due to infectious diseases and microbial contamination.Background: Cord blood (CB) is becoming an important source of stem cell for hematopoietic reconstitution. Allogenic CB transplantations are increasing world-wide, but government does not grant funding for public CB banking.
HealthBanks Biotech began to provide public CB banking service since 2004. Management of public CB bank, including donor recruitment, collection, processing, testing and cryopreservation, is completely separated from private bank. Public and private CBU inventories are not commingled, and private CBU cannot be converted into public. Only public CBU are listed on public registries and BMDW. This study is based on the public inventories generated at the AABB and CAP accredited HealthBanks Cord Blood Bank during the first 5 years of activities. Method: From June 2004 to Dec. 2008, 4279 pregnant mothers have been enrolled and 3330 CBU with qualified informed consent, maternal blood specimen and CB collection volume are processed within 48 hours of collection. The buffy coat fraction was prepared by HES sedimentation, two-step centrifugation procedure and manual extraction, followed by addition of cryoprotectant and storing the CBU into
BioArchive. HLA type, hemoglobinopathy analysis, CFU assay, blood type, TNC number, CD34+ cell percentage and viability are performed during CBU testing. Maternal blood collected 48 hours before or after delivery is tested for infectious disease markers. All informed consents are completed before delivery. Completion of consent and questionnaire are performed by nursing consultant in a private area during consultation. Result: 2950 cryopreserved CBUs (85.58%) with qualified family health questionnaire and that are compliant with international standards were listed on BMDW website. Ethnic analysis indicates 87.77% donor’s parents are Taiwanese/Hakka. The main reasons for discarding CBU are due to infectious diseases and microbial contamination.