Understanding how umbilical cord stem cells could make transplants more accessible for people with blood cancer

Stem cell transplants are currently the only cure for some of the hardest to treat blood cancers, including acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). Stem cells (special cells that produce all other types of blood cells), can come from bone marrow, blood or umbilical cord blood. Umbilical cord blood is easy to collect and widely available. Early evidence also suggests that it may reduce the risk that someone’s blood cancer will come back compared to a transplant form bone marrow. Unfortunately, each umbilical cord contains only a small number of stem cells. This can slow down recovery after a transplant and may not provide enough cells for some people. Finding ways to grow these stem cells outside the body is an important challenge that could make life-saving transplants available to more people.

In this project, Dr Grey and Dr Masoumihis will study the proteins inside stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood. Proteins control how cells grow, repair themselves and produce blood. By studying these proteins, the team hope to gain a deeper understanding of how stem cells work. They will then grow these cells in the lab to see how well they develop over time and use this knowledge to identify which umbilical cord blood samples are most likely to work well in people with blood cancer. The goal is to find new ways to grow larger numbers of umbilical cord blood stem cells outside the body, making them stronger and more effective for transplant.

If successful, this research could lead to new and better ways of growing umbilical cord blood stem cells outside the body, making transplants safer and faster. In the longer term, this could make stem cell transplants more accessible and more effective for people with the hardest to treat blood cancers.