Wharton’s jelly is the embryonic connective tissue that surrounds the blood vessels of the umbilical cord and is the only remnant of embryonic tissue in the newborn. This type of tissue contain mesenchymal stem cells that can not be collected with the classical method nor with the drainage of the placenta. These stem cells are collected  from a part of the umbilical cord about 15cm of length, that is cut from the obstetrician and comes to the laboratory in a special sterile package. The cells are separated through enzymatic digestion, cryopreserved and stored in two cryovials for the next 20 years. 

Today the stem cells from this source have been differentiated in neural cells, osteocytes, chondrocytes, adipocytes, cardiomyocytes and skeletal myocytes and for this reason the cells are expected to be used in regenerative medicine. Their most important use however is the regulation effect on the immune system that leads to the reduction of allogeneic hematopoietic transplants (not fully matched) rejection for the leukemia and malignancies treatment. Their simultaneous administration with not fully matched haematopoietic transplants increase the percentage of hematopoietic cells implantation and decrease their rejection.

This type of cells is for autologous use today. In Biohellenika we use enzymatic digestion methods to isolate and cryopreserve stem cells and never cryopreserve whole segments of umbilical cord. Following our method we are able any time to use these type of cells for the patients, instead to wait to defrost the segments and isolate the cells at the time that the patient is needed. Also the method of the whole tissue cryopreservation is not secure for the future stem cells isolation after post-thaw.

By using all these three sources during the birth, we complete all the possible ways to harvest stem cells. We assure to give the opportunity to use stem cells for hematological diseases and applications of regenerative medicine therapies to all patients, even those with a big body mass, that under different conditions would not have a sufficient number of stem cells for treatment.