1985:    Dr. Hal Broxmeyer discovers the presence of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells in human cord blood.

1988:    First successful related cord blood transplant conducted in Paris, France, on a six-year-old male patient from Duke suffering from a blood disorder called Fanconi’s Anemia.

1992:    First public bank for umbilical cord blood established by Dr. Pablo Rubinstein at the New York Blood Center through funding provided by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

1993:    First unrelated cord blood transplant in the world is performed by Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg at Duke University’s Pediatric Blood and Marrow Program.

1996:    FDA launches an Investigational New Drug (IND) for cord blood under the Cord Blood Transplantation Study (COBLT). The study was sponsored by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).

1998:    National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) launches cord blood program.

2005:    U.S. Congress passes national cord blood legislation, The Stem Cell Research and Therapeutic Act of 2005 (H.R. 2520), to create a national inventory of 150,000 diverse, high-quality cord blood samples.

2012:    Over 30,000 unrelated cord blood transplants performed.