Umbilical Cord Blood Banking?

Maestro writes "There must be many parents (and soon-to-be parents) here at Slashdot. What are your thoughts on umbilical cord blood banking? This seems like a major question for our newborn; the question is almost as stressful for us as naming the baby. Given Obama's stance on stem cells, the topic is timely. My understanding is that while the current uses for cord blood are limited, the sky's the limit for the future of stem cell therapies. But with the initial cost over $1000, and ongoing yearly fees, is it worth it?"

Comments

Re:useless in 10 years

[messner_007]

This is true, but Umbilical Cord cells aren't magical weapon for curing all diseases. There are not so many real uses for them today. They are promising, but not really curing the diseases.

The trick is in reprogramming. Those cells can reprogram to any cell in the body and theoretically replace any falling organ, but it is not sure if they will. Most of the time, they don't.

When we will be able to reprogram them (for example) to become insulin islet cells, then we have won the battle. We will cure diabetes. But when we will know how to reprogram them, then we will not need Umbilical cells, that aren't of much use today (although they aren't totally useless). We could easily use somatic cells (mature cells in the body) and program them to behave as we want ... some nice progress is being made on that field today ...

Re:useless in 10 years

[commodore64_love]

I agree with you. Just the other day I read that stem cells can be cultivated from teeth, and converted to any other cell, so the cord blood is not really necessary. Take the ~$10,000 you're likely to waste on cord blood storage, invest it in an IRA or other taxfree instrument, and then twenty years from now use that money to pay for your kid's college. Getting that education will be FAR more important to his health than some old rotting cord.

And then if he needs a new organ, they can take one of his old baby teeth, or his wisdom teeth, and harvest stem cells from there. No need for the umbilical.