Wondering if folks here have done any research on the potential T1D treatments that may involve cord blood and/or cord tissue?
With the upcoming baby we are probably going to do the cord blood banking. Even if the odds of it turning into a potential treatment are low, I’d kick myself if there was some treatment that involved cord blood and we hadn’t bothered to save any this time around. It’s $$, but ultimately within a range we’d pay without hesitation if it meant even a slight improvement in Samson’s BG control.
I know Dr. Zhao is using the stem cell educator program with cord stem cells.
But are there any projects that would require cord tissue?
We saved the cord blood from our second son after our first son had cancer when he was a year old. We saved it because we heard of all of the potential, not only today…but the potential in the future because the stem cells from the placenta/umbilical can operate as any cell…polymorphism in effect. Since we thought it wouldn’t hurt, we saved his stem cells. Then, he was diagnosed with autism. Well, today there is a huge study underway for cord blood stem cell therapies helping with autism. We’re glad we saved them and who knows what will be possible with Stem cells in the future. Once they’re stored, they can be used 50 years from now on if technologies/medical procedures create some therapy for diseases that we may be dealing with now, and for those that we may be unfortunate enough to have to deal with later.
I recommend anyone save them! Better to have them and never be able to use them, than some therapy be available via cord blood, but not having any in storage.
We saved cord blood/tissue from our second son as well. Just curious what company you guys had chosen. We use ViaCord. I heard of some promising research but nothing lately.
Mitch is leaning towards CBR. I guess his reasoning is that it’s in the Bay Area and transport is one of the main ways samples get damaged, so there is less of that to worry about.
We chose blood and tissue because of the uncertainty of what could be needed in the future and didn’t want to kick ourselves for not choosing both. In reality, I bet it is all moot as far a diabetes research is concerned. I believe there will be commercial stem cell lines and the banking will not be needed…but who knows.
I keep an eye on it because we have cord blood for my T1D son. There is nothing in published research I have seen that makes me feel elated yet, but I figure it may happen.
I am not 100% sure if stem cell banking, as we did, will be helpful in the end, because there are several studies able to reverse engineer regular cells into other types of cells – essentially retro-generating stem cell capability. But, of course, many of these studies never turn into actual reality for medical care. I am glad we did it with my son - at least this way we will never regret not doing it post facto.