Now you will be watching airline, mobile phone and media mogul Richard Branson in the role of a social activist; not in reel life but in real life. Yes, you read it right. Actually, after being approached by Britain’s national blood bank for help boosting the number of umbilical blood samples, Richard Branson has made up his mind to set up a nonprofit blood bank to allow parents to store stem cells from their children’s umbilical cords.
Telling more about it luminary Richard Branson said:
There were quite a lot of children dying in Britain unnecessarily because there was not enough cord blood stored… so, what we’ve decided to do is set up a company that can get out there and increase the number of samples dramatically.
Under this new system, which is likely to be set up very soon parents wishing to store their children’s umbilical stem cells would have to pay $2,940 to put the cord blood into a freezer for 20 years and about half the blood would be made publicly available.
I strongly believe that this would prove beneficial for thousands of patients since these stored umbilical cords could be used to regenerate tissue such a bone marrow, making the cells particularly important for treating blood cancers and diseases like leukemia and sickle cell anemia.
Image credit: March of dimes
Via: Yahoo