[Umbilical cord blood--a perfect source of stem cells?]

Because of their biological features and unlimited range of use, stem cells have been the object of great interest for some time. There are two main kinds of stem cells: primary embryonic stem cells and adult organism stem cells. The first kind derives from early stages of embryo development and are toti- and pluripotential. The second kind of stem cells are non-differentiated cells of mature tissues and have the capability of transforming into type of cell of the tissue there are present in. Recently, the umbilical blood has become the new source of hematopoiesis precursors thus increasing greatly the scope of possible recipients; umbilical blood is a reservoir of mesenchyme stem cells out of which we can culture in vitro offspring cells of various tissues. So far the clinical application of umbilical blood stem cells have been limited to the hematological transplantology, but it seems that soon they can become the "material of choice" in the surgical transplantology, immunotherapy and gene therapy.