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Cord Blood Coordinating Center Contract Summary

The Cord Blood Coordinating Center is one of four components of the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program (Program). According to the Program's contract, the Cord Blood Coordinating Center will:

• Work with cord blood banks to recruit more expectant parents to donate umbilical cord blood for any patient. Special emphasis will be on parents of racially or ethnically diverse backgrounds. This includes creating educational materials for the public and health care professionals.
  
  Learn how the unique qualities of the blood-forming cells from cord blood can help patients when other sources cannot.
  
  
• Coordinate a network of organizations that work together to provide quality cord blood transplants. This includes defining standards and ensuring they are followed by organizations in the network and adding cord blood banks to the network that meet those standards.

Organizations in the network include:

• • Public cord blood banks for processing and storing cord blood units.
  • Cooperative registries (which are registries in other countries having agreements with the Cord Blood Coordinating Center) for identifying cord blood units and marrow donors located outside of the United States.
  • Transplant centers (which are hospitals with an experienced transplant team) for taking care of patients who receive a bone marrow or umbilical cord blood transplant.
    
• Provide an efficient information system for collecting samples and identifying and matching tissue types through one electronic system (Single Point of Access). This includes:
  • Maintaining a national registry of cord blood units, including units from the National Cord Blood Inventory.
  • Identifying and, if requested, reserving a cord blood unit that matches a patient’s tissue type. This includes cord blood units from the National Cord Blood Inventory.
  • Providing more testing for tissue type and infectious diseases of cord blood units being considered for transplant.
    
• Work closely with the Office of Patient Advocacy to provide educational information for patients, the public, and medical professionals and to help patients throughout the transplant process. This includes:
  • Allowing patients and doctors to search for a marrow donor or cord blood unit.
  • Searching worldwide for all sources of cells through one electronic system.
  • Providing updates of the search progress to patients, doctors, and transplant centers.
    
• Ensure outcomes data for transplants using umbilical cord blood units are collected and provided for research.
• Ensure patient and donor confidentiality throughout the search and transplant process and when providing outcomes and research data.
• Plan for public health emergencies which may require cord blood or bone marrow transplants.

To learn about the contractor for the Cord Blood Coordinating Center, see National Marrow Donor Program, a Program Contractor.