The first public bank of steam cells in the country will be created in Bogota

The project, led by the District Blood Center of the Ministry of Health and coordinated by Guillermo Orjuela, a graduate doctor from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, aims at positioning as the fourth bank in Latin America, after Brazil and Mexico.

Its main objective is providing the possibility to millions of people in the country and the world, to acquire steam cells from umbilical cords capable of curing diseases. "A child or adult patient, without any compatible person in their family for a transplant, will be able to find eventually compatible cells in the bank"s data base," asserted Orjuela.

According to this researcher, the most frequent mortality cases are associated to leukemia and lymphoma, or metabolic congenital defects. In this sense, "the idea is to provide the patients who need them with this product at a reasonable price for everyone to have access to these therapies," mentioned Orjuela. Normally, the importation of these cells cost around 25,000 and 30,000 USD.

The bank will create agreements with some maternity services for mothers to be informed of its existence and therefore, "the umbilical cord and placenta won"t be wasted", as it happens frequently in hospital centers.

From the granting of a scholarship by Colfuturo in the University of Bristol (England), Guillermo Orjuela had the chance to learn from two of the most prestigious banks of blood stem cells and umbilical cords in the United Kingdom and the world (the Antony Nolan Cell Therapy Center in Nottingham and the Department of Steam cells and immunotherapy of the National Health Service Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) in Filton, Bristol), a situation that allowed him to return to the country and be part of this innovative project.  

It is expected that by the middle of 2012, the Bank of Steam Cells and Umbilical Cords opens its doors to mothers and beneficiaries.