This document discusses how banking umbilical cord blood can help with stem cell therapy. It explains that stem cells have the ability to transform into any tissue or organ and can treat many disorders. There are two main types of stem cells used - hematopoietic stem cells found in blood and cord blood that form blood cells, and mesenchymal stem cells from bone marrow that can differentiate into various cell types like muscle or nerve cells. Banking umbilical cord blood plays an important role in regeneration by providing stem cells that have properties like homing to injury sites, plasticity to form different tissues, and engraftment to combine with new tissues when needed.

1. How Does Banking Umbilical Cord Help?
Stems cells are the cells that have the ability to transform into any organ or tissue that is there
in the human body. It is for this reason that this has the ability to treat as many as 80
disorders and diseases. It is true that there are different kinds of cells present in the human
body, however, stem cells therapy, make use of just 2 types of cells.
How does umbilical cord blood help?
The stem cells are extremely flexible in nature. It is because of this that the stem cells are
able to easily renew and also divide themselves. As a result, they are also able to take the
form of any tissue or cell and are able to treat a number of diseases. The unique features of
the stem cells are mentioned below:
• Homing - These cells have a homing ability, which means that they
get attracted towards the actual injury site.
• Plasticity - The stem cells make use of just one tissue and are able to
create a variety of different tissues.
• Engraftment - This is another very important feature that makes the
stem cells so very much useful. This property helps these cells to combine with the
new tissues. Thus these regenerating tissues combine with the parent tissues easily.
The various type of stem cells that are used in stem cell therapy
• Hematopoietic Stem cells
These cells are found in the peripheral blood and also in the cord blood. These cells are
hematopoietic or even blood forming by nature. This way they give rise to the various
cells formed from blood. These cells include both red as well as white blood cells.
• Mesenchymal stem cells
These are cells that originate from the bone marrow and this is there in the stroma. These
are able to differentiate into different types of cells. These include adipocytes, osteocytes,
myocytes and chondrocytes and also cardiomyoctes. These cells also regenerate into
blood vessels and neurones. Thus banking umbilical cord play a very important role in
the process of regeneration when needed.
• Pluripotent stem cells
These are cells that have the features of both the Mesenchymal and also hematopoietic
cells. They are thus able to differentiate themselves into the different kind of cells.
Thus cord blood storage is highly effective and may prove to be highly beneficial for the
individual in the future.