Medical hope in umbilical cord bloodChicago Tribune
October 24, 2005
When 5-year-old Gina Rugari started kindergarten in Cincinnati this fall she brought her own crayons, pencils, glue sticks and pink backpack, but the blood flowing through her arteries was not her own.
Her red and white cells are the result of an umbilical cord blood transplant she had at 3 weeks of age. The transplant from an unrelated donor repopulated her bone marrow with stem cells, the wellspring of her new blood supply.
Her blood does all the things blood is supposed to do, but in Gina’s case it does something much more: It prevents the swift destruction of her brain by a faulty gene she was born with.”
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