The Carolinas Cord Blood Bank (CCBB) is one of the largest public cord blood banks in the world. Established in 1998 with support from the National Heart and Blood Institute of the NIH, the CCBB collects, processes and banks cord blood donated by mothers delivering at nine collection sites or through the Kit Program.
The CCBB is FACT and CAP accredited and CLIA certified. In 2012 it received FDA approval for the licensure of unrelated donor banked umbilical cord blood.
The CCBB has an extensive inventory of racially diverse cord blood units. Thousands of mothers have donated their cord blood to the CCBB. This diversity helps patients of all racial and ethnic backgrounds find suitable matches for transplantation.
Cord blood units that are banked at CCBB are listed on the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) Be the Match® Registry, and are made available to patients worldwide needing a hematopoietic stem cell transplant to treat cancer or certain genetic diseases.
The CCBB has distributed over 2,500 cord blood units for transplantation since its inception. Cord blood recipients of CCBB units include children and adult patients facing life-threatening illnesses who need a "stem cell" transplant from an unrelated donor to provide them with healthy blood cells. Many of these patients have been affected by leukemia, lymphoma, severe aplastic anemia, or other fatal diseases of the blood or immune system, or certain inherited metabolic diseases.
In addition to life-saving transplants, the CCBB also provides cord blood units for research and for new clinical trials exploring new indications for cord blood.
For more information about the CCBB, please visit the CCBB website.
The CCBB also provides more information on how to become a cord blood donor.