Tissue banking in Asia Pacific region: past, present and future.

Tissue banking in the Asia Pacific regions is driven by two main forces-firstly the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) via Regional Co-operative Agreement projects and secondly by the Asia Pacific Association of Surgical Tissue Banking (APASTB). This overview is written in three sections: (1) History of tissue banking in individual country in the region. (2) History of APASTB.

Therapeutic time window of multipotent adult progenitor therapy after traumatic brain injury.

Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability. TBI results in a prolonged secondary central neuro-inflammatory response. Previously, we have demonstrated that multiple doses (2 and 24 h after TBI) of multipotent adult progenitor cells (MAPC) delivered intravenously preserve the blood-brain barrier (BBB), improve spatial learning, and decrease activated microglia/macrophages in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus.