Around 1,400 people in the UK receive a potentially lifesaving stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor each year. But there are still people in need of a transplant who struggle to find a suitable donor because they don’t have a close genetic match to an unrelated adult donor.
One alternative option is to use stem cells from umbilical cord blood. Also called ‘cord blood,’ it contains millions of useful blood stem cells, which can be used in transplant as well as in groundbreaking research. One unique thing about cord blood is that the stem cells contained within are immature – meaning that a patient doesn’t need to match as closely to the genes of the donor as they might need to with an adult donor transplant.
Cord blood can be collected as part of the birthing process without any risk to parent or baby, as it’s simply blood left in the placenta and umbilical cord after birth that is usually disposed of. Since 2008, Anthony Nolan has been maintaining its own cord blood bank at the Cell Therapy Centre in Nottingham, where over 10,000 cord blood units are stored in specialised freezers, ready to be shipped to patients who need them.
Over 70,000 people have donated their cord blood to us through five collection sites across the UK since 2007, making an arguably immeasurable difference to hundreds of patients’ lives.
Thanks to a generous and transformational donation from the Denise Coates Foundation, we’re now working on expanding our cord blood bank and keeping it moving apace with the latest developments in transplant and cell therapies.
How the cord blood bank helps us address transplant inequities
When searching for a suitable donor for a stem cell transplant, many things need to be considered – not least, the level of genetic matching between a patient and donor. A less-than-ideal match could mean that the donor stem cells identify the patient’s healthy cells as hostile, causing a potentially fatal side effect called graft versus host disease (GvHD).
Because people from a minority ethnic background can have a lower chance of finding a fully matched unrelated donor on the stem cell register, cord blood can offer an alternative source of stem cells. The cells in cord blood are immature, meaning patients and donors don’t need to be as well matched as in a transplant from an unrelated adult donor.
This means that our cord blood bank plays an important role in improving equity for patients, by offering an alternative source of stem cells for transplant, especially for patients who may have a lower chance of finding a fully matched adult donor. Maintaining and expanding our cord blood bank is a fundamental part of Anthony Nolan’s organisational strategy.
The limitations of the cord blood bank
The cord blood bank is set up to support a significant variety of patient treatments and research – but as patient treatments expand further, and more cord units are banked, the complexity of the data and management requirements at the centre also increase.
This presents us with a significant infrastructure challenge – both in terms of the physical storage of cord blood units, and the software that helps us manage all the associated data.
It’s also not just about meeting the immediate need. Improvements to infrastructure can help us prepare for the future, allowing us to continue to grow more sustainably and meet additional anticipated needs beyond the present.
What needs to be done
Various upgrades need to be made to our facilities to support expansion, including the refurbishment of the specialised laboratory clean rooms where we process and store cord blood units, and upgrading our ultra-low temperature freezers to ones which are more energy efficient with greater capacity.
Other equipment that needs an upgrade includes our flow cytometer – a machine that measures how many stem cells are in each cord blood unit. This is a crucial part of ensuring that cord blood units can be banked for transplant or research purposes, depending on their cell counts.
Upgrades to our data management systems are also needed to help ensure they can keep pace with modern technologies and evolving regulatory standards. This will improve our efficiency and help reduce excessive workloads for colleagues.
These improvements will both expand our capacity to store cord blood units and increase our efficiency, reduce running costs, and allow us to spend more resources preparing for the future.
What’s already been achieved
Thanks to the enormously impactful donation from the Denise Coates Foundation, we’re making considerable steps towards meeting these goals. The Cell Therapy Centre in Nottingham is preparing to undergo some major upgrades, which we’ll be excited to share in the coming years.
These changes will help us meet the growing need for cord blood units, and provide even more lifesaving services for patients. In 2024, we achieved the milestone of providing 400 cord blood units for transplant around the world – a number we hope will continue to grow substantially with increased investment in our cord blood bank.
With support of our partnerships and generous funders, we are working towards a world in which more people receiving a transplant not only survive, but thrive – and in which everyone who needs a transplant can find a match, regardless of their background or characteristics.