CRYOCORD QUALITY ASSURANCE

At CryoCord’s laboratory, annual colony-forming unit (CFU) assays are carried out routinely to assess the viability and integrity of our stored cord blood samples. Such assays are in compliance to cGMP guidelines and we are the only laboratory in Malaysia to perform CFU assays on our stored cord blood units.

Tools used to define HSC have evolved and improved greatly since the first detection of pluripotent stem cells by Till and McCulloch in 1961. Most HSC studies rely on several standard in vivo and in vitro assays for the assessment of HSC activity. Among the many assays employed, the CFC assay, also referred to as the methylcellulose assay, is the most commonly employed in vitro assay for the quantification of committed hematopoietic progenitors. It is this assay that CryoCord’s laboratory employs for our annual assay of pre-processing cord blood samples and post-thaw cord blood samples (which are selected at random). The results obtained are compared with each other and a log of our yearly results is kept to monitor the colony-forming potential of our stored cord blood samples.

The picture below shows an inverted microscope in use at the CryoCord laboratory to observe and score colonies on an incubated methylcellulose plate.

All pictures are courtesy of CryoCord Sdn. Bhd.: