Advances and challenges in storage, transplantation, expansion and homing of Umbilical Cord Blood Hematopoietic Stem Cells (UCB-HSCs)

Abstract Background and Objectives Umbilical cord blood hematopoietic stem cells (UCB-HSCs) have high potential capabilities in the treatment of hematological and non-hematological disorders. Awareness of biology, self-renewal, homing, expansion, storage, and transplantation can lead to optimal use of these cells.   Materials and Methods In this Review article in order to investigate the advances and challenges in cord blood banks, the expansion, storage, homing and transplantation of umbilical cord blood stem cells, we used key words like umbilical cord blood, hematopoietic stem cells and stem cell banks for searching published articles in the PubMed database during 2000 to 2020.   Results Over time, many advances in biology, expansion, storage, and transplantation of cord blood cells have been made by researchers around the world with a growth in the number of private and public cord blood banks in parallel. Despite these advances, there are still challenges to the optimal use of these cells.   Conclusions  Increasing our awareness about the achievements and shortcomings in the area of UCB-HSCs, can lead to the formation of new strategies and further studies for the optimal use of these cells.