We don’t often give much thought to the fact that our body is made up of millions of individual cells. Alone, these cells don’t make for much, but when they come together, they create you. Everything about you, from the nail on your big toe to your beating heart is made up of cells. These cells work hard to keep your body going, but from the moment you are born, the cells begin to die. Some cells in our bodies regenerate or new ones come about to help keep us going.

Although we don’t see our cells breaking down per se, we can see the effects of such a breakdown, most notably in our skin. As we age, our skin cells break down and we get wrinkles, coarse skin, and it becomes paper thin. If that is what is what you can see, imagine what you can’t see. You’d spent thousands of dollars throughout your lifetime buying skin care products designed to keep you looking younger, but have you thought about buying something that could make more of an impact that reducing the look of fine lines and wrinkles?

Stem cell banking is starting to gain some traction, but SCI recognizes that more work needs to be done to connect people to this service so that they can take advantage of the power of their own cells. Cord blood stem cell banking is rising in popularity amongst new parents who want to provide their children with access to their own embryonic cells if they ever need them in the future. There are many reasons why parents have decided to do this, but not the least of which is to provide their children with a chance to overcome life-threatening cancers and other conditions.

The job of stem cells is to repair damaged cells, but as we age, these cells lose the ability to continue to fight off natural degeneration of cells. In cases where our cells are damaged or old, they no longer have the ability to ward off threats in our body. When someone gets cancer, cells change and our bodies don’t have the ability to combat those changing cells. However, research has shown that in some cases, with certain types of cancer, stem cells can have a dramatic effect on the progression of cancer or in some cases, a remission of sorts can be achieved.

The best chance for success is to be open to the possibilities and opportunities that exist because of stem cell treatments. In order to create those opportunities though, stem cells need to be available to people who would need them during such events. And because we can never know when you may need stem cell, banking provides a peace of mind that should a condition, cancer, or a disease arise, you have a first-line defense system to fall back on.

The problem with stem cell banking right now, as identified by SCI, is similar to other aspects of the stem cell industry: not enough people know, not enough people have access, and not enough people are given the option to participate in stem cell banking. One of the key services that SCI will provide its clients will be connecting expecting parents with stem cell banks, whether in their own country or another. While the industry continues to grow and becomes more accessible, SCI will be preventing expectant parents from having to wait for such access. As with all areas of stem cell treatments and therapies, waiting could mean the difference

between life and death for some people. In the case of banking embryonic cells not being banked at birth due to a lack of storage access, opportunities for future stem cell treatment are lost.

For more information about SCI, visit www.scia.io