TIANJIN — A national health institute and a cell and gene engineering firm inked an agreement on April 10 on a new sharing platform to support umbilical cord stem cell research.

The umbilical cord blood bank in Tianjin Municipality will upload the information. The blood bank is affiliated to VCANBIO Cell & Gene Engineering, which has the largest cell resource storage network in the country with more than 300,000 copies. It is currently the only company of its kind listed on a Chinese bourse.

“The national umbilical cord blood stem cell resource sharing service platform, once it has enough data to share, will be an open resource,” said Wang Dehai, from the institute of science and technology of the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Umbilical cord blood stem cell transplants are used to treat major and refractory diseases such as severe thalassemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia.

China has umbilical cord blood stem cell banks in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangdong and other places.

The one in Tianjin has provided more than 1,000 transplant donors for clinical and scientific research.