New York Blood Center to receive federal funds...

According to this recently-issued media release,

"New York Blood Center (NYBC) announced today that it will receive $3 million of a $12 million federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) award as allocated by Congress, to help establish a national cord blood inventory. The funding will be used to help build a national public inventory of 150,000 high-quality cord blood units, thereby increasing transplant opportunities for patients suffering from various blood diseases, who before the use of cord blood, had relied strictly on bone marrow transplantation for treatment and survival."

It looks like the federal government is beginning to get serious about the creation and maintenance of a national cord blood inventory, doesn't it? With stem cell research from embryos a political hot potato, more and more attention may end up being focused on umbilical cord blood banking than what some may have expected.