Duke University has landed a $10.2 million gift to help prove the benefits of therapies derived from donated umbilical cord blood cells.
The funding commitment from the Robertson Foundation creates a state-of-the-art Translational Cell Therapy Center on the Durham campus, under the guidance of cord-blood pioneer Joanne Kurtzberg, M.D.
Duke and North Carolina's other cross-state private regenerative medicine powerhouse, Wake Forest University, are emerging as global magnets for research optimism in separate approaches to rebuilding damaged human organs and systems with stem cells.
The Carolinas Cord Blood Bank, a Duke program, led by Kurtzberg, is one of the largest public cord blood banks in the world, currently storing approximately 27,000 units. After the birth of a baby, families at 14 hospitals and health systems throughout the region donate the nascent cells in umbilical cord vessels, rather than discarding the tissue.
As a result, children with cerebral palsy and other brain injuries come from all over the world for cord blood treatments.
Meanwhile, in Winston-Salem, Anthony Atala, M.D., oversees the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, which has been building organs such as bladders and skin from recipients' own cells, with a plan for implanting the healthy new organs to correct injury or disease.