Ex-vivo expansion of hematopoietic stem cells from umbilical cord blood

One of the major focuses in experimental hematology is the in vitro manipulation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) and progenitors with the goal of generating clinically relevant cell numbers from the limited number of cells present in available samples for multiple settings including bone marrow transplantation, somatic cell gene therapy and production of mature blood cell types. The goal of ex-vivo expansion is to induce proliferation of stem/progenitor cells, while maintaining their primary functional characteristics, namely, their ability to sustain long-term hematopoiesis in vivo. Although the hematopoietic system is one of the most intensively studied, with numerous clinical applications, it is still far from being completely understood, and hematopoietic cell culture remains among the most challenging culture systems due to its intrinsic heterogeneity and high variability derived from the cell source. The ability to successfully expand the numbers of human HSC in highly controlled culture systems (i.e. bioreactors) would clearly boost their current and future medical use.