Bone marrow transplants have been used for the past 40 years to regenerate the blood and immune systems of patients with leukemia, lymphoma, severe aplastic anemia or inherited metabolic diseases. Unfortunately, the major limitation with allogenic bone marrow transplants is the availability of matched donors.

Stem cells from Umbilical Cord Blood (UCB) have emerged as an alternative to bone marrow transplants, providing an easily obtainable and readily available source of treatment. UCB transplants may result in a lower incidence of transplant complications, specifically graft-versus-host disease, common in patients receiving a transplant from an unrelated donor. UCB transplants also have less stringent requirements for donor matching compared to bone marrow transplants, increasing the likelihood that an appropriate donor can be found for patients. Until recently, UCB transplants were limited to pediatric patients due to the low cell stem cell dose. But in 2004, researchers demonstrated that combining stem cells from two UCB units could increase the cell dose to extend this lifesaving hematopoietic treatment to adult patients.

In addition to regenerating the blood and immune systems, scientists anticipate that stem cells will be used to replace damaged or diseased tissues and organs. Clinical trials are ongoing to repair scarred or dying heart muscle after a heart attack or during congestive heart failure. On-going research in diabetes is focused on understanding how stem cells might be trained to become the type of pancreatic islet cells that secrete needed insulin. Repair of debilitating spinal cord injuries is also a goal of researchers through the regeneration of neurons, myelin and nerve cells.