Landscape of Cell Banking

As the aging population grows in the United States and globally, regenerative medicine has become an important healthcare sustainability goal, as it has the potential to save billions of dollars in healthcare costs. One important aspect of regenerative medicine is cellular therapy, where the cellular component used in the construction of organs and tissue is extremely vital. Banking stem cells has generally been seen in the bone marrow and cord blood transplant fields for hematopoietic diseases; however, within the last decade regenerative medicine has expanded the use of banked stem cells to neurodegenerative, cardiac, and musculoskeletal diseases. The biobanking field for clinical use includes a public-unrelated/universal-donor model as well as an autologous-source model consisting of privately storing one's own cells. Banking cells for public use or to establish cell lines that could be used for multiple patients may be associated with financial savings, as the execution of federal regulations on one donor cell line would facilitate sourcing individual donors for each patient. With private banking or banking one's own cells, the threat of immune rejection is diminished; however, the time and cost required is a challenge compared to using cell lines or a universal donor. Taking into account the regulatory considerations, time constraints of patient treatment, and financial considerations, both public and private cell banking will play significant roles in the future of translational regenerative medicine.