Stem cell bank sets up at Bangalore hospital

Bangalore, Mar 29 (ANI): Narayana Health City, a hospital in Bangalore, has come-up with a public stem cell bank named the Rotary Narayana Tissue Bank and Stem Cell Research Centre.

Stem cells are used in the treatment of diseases like leukemia, breast cancer, lymphoma, anaemia among others.

This stem cell bank is supposed to have three hundred thousand samples which can be used for matching up for the patients in need of the stem cells across the country as well as abroad.

"Now, the issue of a private bank is, you can utilise the services of the core blood exclusively only for that particular family. It does not reach out to anybody else. Whereas, the notion of a public stem cell bank or a core blood bank would make the product available to masses," said Dr. Premanand Nagaraja, CEO, Narayana Research Centre.

"Now in a public bank what happens is nobody pays you any money to collect the samples. We on behalf of the hospital and the institute spend the money, go and take the consent, collect the samples, bring it down here, process it, test it and finally store it in liquid nitrogen for any number of years," said Dr. Nagaraja.A public stem cell also means new hope for many blind persons.

According to cornea surgeons, eye stem cell research has been a base of the stem cell research for a long time.

This tissue bank will process, test and preserve various human tissues such as skin, cornea, heart valves, bone cartilage and tendons for therapeutic purposes. By Jaipal Sharma (ANI)