In Conversation: The Evolution of Cord Blood Banking with Frances Verter, PhD

This article originally appeared in AABB News, a benefit of AABB membership. Join AABB today to read the rest of this month’s issue.

In honor of Cord Blood Aware­ness Month, AABB News is pleased to spotlight Frances Verter, PhD, founder and CEO of the Parent's Guide to Cord Blood, a foundation focusing on cord blood advocacy and education, and the only orga­nization in the United States that maintains databases of both public and private cord blood banks.

Verter founded the foundation in 1998 in memory of her daughter Shai. Shai was diagnosed with cancer as an infant and died before her fifth birthday. After losing Shai, Verter went on to have more children and decided to bank their cord blood privately. The effort of investigating the cord blood banks available at that time inspired her to develop the Parent's Guide to Cord Blood. Verter discusses her career in the cord blood banking field below.

 

WHAT CHANGES HAVE SURPRISED YOU THE MOST ABOUT THE CORD BLOOD BANKING FIELD SINCE YOU BECAME INVOLVED IN THE LATE 9OS?

When family (also known as private) cord blood banking was new, parents wanted to understand the pro­cess, and they asked a lot of questions about laboratory procedures. I have been surprised to find that throughout the years, parents in the U.S. have come to view cord blood banking as a commodity, where they assume that the service is standardized. This is less true in other countries, but there is a worldwide trend toward parents being less curious about how banking works. This is very unfortunate, because there are still significant differ­ences between banks, if you ask the right questions.

WHY SHOULD THE PUBLIC CARE ABOUT AABB-ACCRED­ITED CORD BLOOD BANKS? HOW CAN THEY BE ASSURED THE FACILITY IS MEETING THESE EXPERT-DEVELOPED STANDARDS AND ADHERING TO THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF QUALITY AND SAFETY?

At Parent's Guide to Cord Blood Foundation, we have always advised parents to review the protocols that banks have in place to maintain quality practices. A convenient shortcut is to simply tell parents to only do business with banks that have accreditation for cord blood banking.

WHAT IS MOST REWARDING ABOUT THE WORK YOU ARE DOING?

What I find the most rewarding is when I publish an article that triggers a conversation in the cord blood com­munity, and people start looking at things in a new way.

WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE MOST EXCITING AREA OF RESEARCH USING CORD BLOOD STEM CELLS?

Right now, I am most excited about soon-to-be­ published research results, which statistically demon­strate that cord blood has benefit for cerebral palsy.

WHY DO YOU BELIEVE MORE PEOPLE ARE NOT AWARE OF CORD BLOOD'S POTENTIAL BENEFITS?

The primary reason that parent interest in cord blood banking has stagnated is lack of regulatory approvals (FDA, EMA, etc.) for new therapies that utilize cord blood. For more than two decades, the sales pitch of family banks has been that cord blood therapy is approved for 80+ diseases, and maybe more someday soon. But those 80+ diseases are all rare in the U.S., and the "maybe more someday soon" has never materialized.

Parents take cord blood banking more seriously in countries that have endemic blood disorders like thalas­semia, because the chance that a child will need a cord blood transplant is not far-fetched.

 

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST ISSUES FACING THE CORD BLOOD BANKING FIELD RIGHT NOW?

The biggest challenge facing the cord blood field right now is the trend of transplant physicians to use haploidentical bone marrow transplants instead of cord blood transplants for patients that do not have a matching bone marrow donor. This trend in the oncology profession has caused a big drop in the number of cord blood transplants in the western hemisphere, and as a result, many of the public cord blood banks are no longer actively collecting donations.

 

WHAT'S YOUR BIGGEST TAKEAWAY OR LESSON LEARNED SINCE YOU FOUNDED YOUR ORGANIZATION?

I originally got a PhD in astrophysics and went into a career doing pure research in academia. Even after spending years at NASA, where research is blended with engineering and many projects are contracted out, I still did not know how to run a business. When I left my job at NASA to incorporate the Parent's Guide to Cord Blood as a non-profit, I had to learn how to run a business while running a business. Looking back, I can congratulate myself that I managed not to go bankrupt (so far), and I raised two kids as a single mother. There were plenty of struggles along the way. My lesson learned is that more researchers in academia should be aware that there are alternate career opportunities available to them working in small businesses and non-profits.

LOOKING AHEAD, WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE NEXT BIG DEVELOPMENT IN CORD BLOOD BANKING?

There are lessons to be learned from the past three decades of cord blood banking. The cord blood commu­nity is like an ecosystem, where all the pieces have to work together in order for the whole to thrive. Currently, many family banks are owned by companies that just want to enroll customers and collect money. But without ongoing research on new applications for cord blood, parents will not be excited about banking. The rising tide that will float everyone's boat is for the community to support more clinical trials with cord blood and more clinical programs offering therapies with cord blood.