Efficacy and safety of adult human bone marrow-derived, cultured, pooled, allogeneic mesenchymal stromal cells (Stempeucel®): preclinical and clinical trial in osteoarthritis of the knee joint.

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common and debilitating chronic degenerative disease of the joints. Currently, cell-based therapy is being explored to address the repair of damaged articular cartilage in the knee joint.

Methods: The in vitro differentiation potential of adult human bone marrow-derived, cultured, pooled, allogeneic mesenchymal stromal cells (Stempeucel®) was determined by differentiating the cells toward the chondrogenic lineage and quantifying sulfated glycosaminoglycan (sGAG).

Optimization of the inventory size of the public cord blood program--the Indian context.

Background: There are reportedly more than 250,000 cord blood units [CBU] available in cord blood banks world over, yet, there are many who are unable to get a suitable match. Being the pioneer to set up the first and only public cord blood bank in India, we needed to strategize the pool size that will meet the transplantation needs of the people of Indian origin, worldwide.

Purpose: To define the optimum size of this public cord blood repository [CBR] that will give at least one 5/6 HLA match to a defined number of cord blood graft requests.