A national health institute has teamed up with a gene engineering firm on Monday to establish a new sharing platform to support umbilical cord stem cell research.

The details will be revealed by the umbilical cord blood bank in Tianjin Municipality. The blood bank is affiliated with VCANBIO Cell & Gene Engineering, which holds China's biggest cell resource storage network with more than 300,000 copies.

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"The national umbilical cord blood stem cell resource sharing service platform, once it has enough data to share, will be an open source," Wang Dehai from the Institute of Science and Technology of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said.

China has several umbilical cord stem cells banks in places including Beijing, Guangdong, Shanghai, and Tianjin. Umbilical cord blood stem cell transplants are used to treat diseases such as thalassemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, and myeloid leukemia.

Last year, an international alliance for stem cell and precision medicines was formed in Guangzhou, with the aim of facilitating international exchange and promoting the global industrial development of stem cells.

According to Chen Haijia, the director of Guangdong Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Association, the Chinese stem cell industry is expected to grow in the coming years as applications for stem cell science would help boost a healthy industrial development in the country. Based on industrial figures, stem cell industry in the Chinese market is expected to reach about $100 billion by 2020.

"We need to cooperate more with global players to build a global stem cell and precision medicine ecosystem," Chen said.

Tagsstem cells, umbilical cord blood bank, china