The U.S. Congress plays an important role in ensuring that all patients in need of a transplant have access to bone marrow, blood cell or umbilical cord blood transplants. Federal support for cord blood donation and research is essential to increasing patient access to transplant.
Helping patients
The C. W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program was authorized in December 2005, when the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005 was enacted into law by the federal government, and amended by the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2010. (Full text of the law is posted on the U.S. Government Printing Office Web site.)
In fall 2006, and again in 2012, the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP) was awarded key contracts to carry out the work mandated in the C. W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program, including the contract to serve as the nation’s Cord Blood Coordinating Center.
This act helps patients by:
- Creating the National Cord Blood Inventory (NCBI). The goal of the NCBI is to collect and store at least 150,000 cord blood units. These cord blood units are used for patients who need a transplant. To continue improving the success of transplants, the NCBI banks will provide additional cord blood units for research.
- Allowing for funding for bone marrow and umbilical cord blood transplantation and research through the NMDP, as part of its role to operate the C. W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program.
As the Cord Blood Coordinating Center, we work with a network of public cord blood banks, including the NCBI banks, to recruit expectant parents for cord blood donations and to distribute cord blood units listed on our Be The Match Registry®.