Naked Science Forum

Life Sciences => Physiology & Medicine => Topic started by: thedoc on 14/05/2012 18:24:58

Title: Would you keep 9,000 placentas?
Post by: thedoc on 14/05/2012 18:24:58

A story that starts with 9,000 placentas floating in plastic buckets of formaldehyde...
Read a transcript of the interview by clicking here (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/2089/)

or [chapter podcast=3946 track=12.04.14/Naked_Genetics_12.04.14_10120.mp3](https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenakedscientists.com%2FHTML%2Ftypo3conf%2Fext%2Fnaksci_podcast%2Fgnome-settings-sound.gif&hash=f2b0d108dc173aeaa367f8db2e2171bd) Listen to it now[/chapter] or [download as MP3] (http://nakeddiscovery.com/downloads/split_individual/12.04.14/Naked_Genetics_12.04.14_10120.mp3)

Title: Re: Would you keep 9,000 placentas?
Post by: CliffordK on 15/05/2012 22:17:14

Hmmm    [:-\]

I would think it would be best to characterize the placentas, perhaps weigh and photograph, then discard.

However, a few years ago, Cord Blood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cord_blood) was all the rage for stem cells.

I see by the Wikipedia article thatautologous cord blood donations for treatment of Leukemia is contraindicated for a couple of reasons including the potential for precancerous cells, as well as the benefits of mild graft vs host disease with bone marrow replacement.  However, there have been suggestions of many future uses of stem cells from the cord blood.