Ex Vivo Expansion of Umbilical Cord Blood Cells on Feeder Layers

This chapter deals with the culture of hematopoietic stem cells contained in human umbilical cord blood in order to amplify the number of progenitor cells. The aim of expanding human umbilical cord blood cells (HUCBC) is to use a larger inoculum for hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) transplantation of allogeneic recipients (1 ). It is hoped that the recovery of blood counts can be significantly fastened by the use of amplified HUCBC, especially in adult patients. Until now, successful transplantation of HUCBC has mainly been performed in children where enough cells can be infused to guarantee fast and stable engraftment (2 ). In these transplants, the decreased risk of acute graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) has been one of the major steps forward in the field of pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Retrospective studies have proven that HUCBC may be used as an alternative source of HSC in the related and unrelated donor setting (2 ,3 ).