Susana G Gomez, PhD, Cord Blood Bank Laboratory Manager
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Sergio Querol, MD PhD, Medical Consultant
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The Cell Therapy Centre (CTC) in Nottingham is a Human Tissue Authority (HTA) licensed establishment with National Research Ethics Committee (NREC) approval from Trent Ethics committee.
The main focus of research within the CTC is the development of a cord blood Biobank, where both cellular and non-cellular fractions can be stored and distributed as clinical grade products for therapy or for research and developmental purposes. The Biobank would take advantage of the cord blood (CB) units arriving at the cord blood bank in Nottingham that do not meet the strict standards required to be used in transplantation.
The development of a research Biobank could be achieved by improving the techniques of separating cell populations found in CB, freezing and banking whilst ensuring that cell viability and functionality are not hindered.
In order to achieve this objective, the Anthony Dodi PhD fellowship has been established as collaboration between Anthony Nolan, the John Van Geest Cancer Research Centre and Nottingham Trent University.
The development of the Biobank will lead to three main areas of interest:
- Technical development of a cord blood Biobank. The procedures used within the Biobank must be improved so that they are simple to perform, efficient, reproducible and economical.
- Assessing CB potency. After being processed and stored in the Biobank, we must ensure that the cellular products have maintained their viability and functionality before they can be dispatched.
- Foeto-maternal immunoregulation as a natural model of tolerance: a proteomic approach.