Medical News About Stem Cells

CordSavings and the CryoSave parents

CordSavings has been entrusted with the custody of the only umbilical cord stem cell samples to have escaped the mess created by Cryo-Save, Famicord and CSG-BIO (*), following the bankruptcy of the former in September 2019, which itself followed the hasty and unauthorised departure of most of the samples - almost 300,000 children concerned worldwide - to the premises of PBKM (Famicord group) in Poland.

Nearly 6,000 stem cell samples from families mainly from Switzerland, Germany, Austria and South Africa are actually stored at the CordSavings stem cell laboratory in Monthey, Switzerland.

To the best of our knowledge, which is very limited given the legal disputes and criminal and civil proceedings between the three companies mentioned above (*) and their respective shareholders, CordSavings is at the disposal of the families affected by this Cryo-Save chaos for any further information and follow-up proposals.

To contact us, please use exclusively this contact form  and indicate the CryoSave contract number(s) to facilitate our research.

Contact form

A stem cell rescue therapy

Among its missions, the Hematology Department provides care for blood cancers. Dr. Anne Cairoli, associate physician, tells us about autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplants (ASCT), known as “autografts,” an intensive treatment offered for the most complex pathologies.

The Lausanne transplant program has held European JACIE accreditation (Joint Accreditation Committee of ISCT-Europe and EBMT) since 2005, a world-renowned quality control system. The Hematology, Oncology and Infectious Diseases departments as well as the Interregional Transfusion CRS are partners in this program. Each year, we perform between 60 and 80 autografts. This large number of patients treated gives us good expertise in this therapy and places us among the national hospitals that perform the most autografts.

Pharmacological and technological innovations will enable drugs to be improved at a sustained pace.

Stem cell research

Stem cells are cells that renew themselves by dividing and multiplying and then differentiate into different types of cells in the body with specific functions. They therefore contain the potential to renew cells and tissues in our body. For example, the hematopoietic stem cells in our bone marrow produce the full range of blood cells, i.e. white and red blood cells and platelets.

This property of stem cells is used today for in vitro testing of new drugs, for disease models, to assess the safety of drugs, or for the treatment of certain diseases.

Link to the article

Link to the article

CordSavings, a Swiss family biobank, December 2022

Founded in 2012, CordSavings is pleased to have moved in 2022, still within the BioArk in Monthey, to brand new premises, designed and optimized by its team. It is with pleasure that the members of CordSavings welcome you today to their laboratory and their cryostorage areas (storage under nitrogen at -180°C). This new environment reflects even better their perfectionism and their passion.