Stem Cell Register To Be Held in City

By Irina Titova

Special to The St. Petersburg Times

Published: March 20, 2009 (Issue # 1458)

A register of donors’ stem cells — special human cells that can help combat illnesses, including some forms of cancer — will appear in St. Petersburg by 2012, it was announced this week.

The register of donor cells taken from the umbilical cords of new-born babies will consist of 10,000 samples, and will take from three to four years to develop, said Alexander Smolyaninov, general director of Pokrovsky Stem Cells Bank, Interfax reported.

This time period is required in order to process and prepare the stem cells for storage.

Stem cells are unique cells that are able to multiply quickly and mature into the cell elements required to make blood and repair the cardiovascular system, endocrine organs, bone, cartilage and muscular tissues.

Stem cells are successfully used to treat leukemia, cancer and other serious illnesses, when traditional medical treatments are not effective.

The cost of developing the register for Russia’s northwest region will amount to $15 to $20 million, and the entire country will be able to use the register, said Smolyaninov.

“Meanwhile, when making such registers, we need to consider the national peculiarities of DNA structure, because the DNA for instance of people from Russia’s northwest may not coincide with the DNA of a person from the Caucasus,” he said. “Therefore we need to create such registers according to national specifications.”

One of the reasons for creating a Russian national stem cells register is that transporting stem cells from foreign donors is very expensive.

“The cost of the transportation of donors’ cells can cost from $20,000 to $40,000,” said Smolyaninov. “In future, the price for so-called biological insurance, including cells intake, their processing and storage, will be equal to 55,000 rubles ($1,650),” he said.

Basyr Ganapiyev, professor at the city’s Raisa Gorbachyova Children’s Hematology and Transplantology Institute, said that about 1,000 people develop leukemia every year in Russia. Last year, doctors carried out 169 bone marrow transplants on children.

The main source of stem cells in the human body is bone marrow, though it is not the only source. The blood from umbilical cords and placenta is another source of stem cells with high potential.

Modern medicine allows stem cells to be extracted from umbilical cord blood in the first few hours after a baby is born. After that, the stem cells can be stored at temperatures less than minus 196 degrees Celsius in special donor banks for decades. If a person needs the stem cells in future for treatment, they will not need require a donor, but can use their own cells.