Increasing access to transplant
The U.S. Congress continues to mandate that all patients in need of a transplant have access to bone marrow, blood cell or umbilical cord blood transplants.
The C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program was authorized in December 2005, when the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005 was enacted into law by the federal government, and amended by the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2010 and 2015. (Full text available on the U.S. Government Printing Office website.)
In fall 2006, and again in 2012, Be The Match® was awarded key contracts to carry out the work mandated in the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program, including the contract to serve as the nation's Cord Blood Coordinating Center. View the complete list of cord blood legislation for each state (PDF).
Helping patients through funding and research
The Stem Cell Act of 2015 helps patients by:
- Creating the National Cord Blood Inventory (NCBI). The goal of the NCBI is to collect and store an additional 150,000 cord blood units, which are used for patients who need a transplant. The NCBI banks will also provide additional cord blood units for research to continue improving the success of transplants.
- Allowing for funding for bone marrow and umbilical cord blood transplantation and research through Be The Match, as part of our role to operate the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program.
As the Cord Blood Coordinating Center, we work with a network of public cord blood banks, including the NCBI banks, to recruit expectant parents for cord blood donations and to distribute cord blood units listed on Be The Match Registry®.