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Comment by jdrc | Hacker News Reader

Is this business viable anymore? Don't we have the Yamanaka factors to reprogram any kind of cells to various levels of undifferentiation? Sounds like an investment with guaranteed zero return at some point in the near future.

Also as ohter say there are public banks for these in many european countries and the cost is ~ $1000 (but they are not available for everyone). There is also a perception that these companies are selling a service that won't be needed - just feeding off the hopes/fears of young parents.

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It's an investment with tremendous return - I personally know the return first hand. If my brother had access to these stem cells, his motor skills could've been improved, which could've led him to more easily be able to do things like cough when he had pneumonia (which ultimately led to the downfall of his health). Reprogramming into other cells can create an extremely unstable cell and a carcinogenic environment

Survival rates from stem cell treatments are also much higher if the stem cells come from a genetically related sample - the best is your own. Beyond that, many may not find a match if you're a person of color or mixed race. This is also a pain point my family personally faced

That was decades ago though. AFAIK nowadays all countries operate large banks - the UK has a big one. It s likely that a donor CAN be found through such banks. Besides, this kind of commercial approach is not systematic and doesnt guarantee diversity of samples in any way -- in fact people from economically disadvantaged genetic backgrounds will have less access to it. Diversity is somethign that public bases do take into account.

Why do you think they'd have less access? They have greater access because they will 100% find a donor - themselves. It guarantees access to a sample regardless of genetic background

As I understand it many of the common potential use cases only work if you have a donor who isn’t yourself. Because if you have a genetic disease that disease will be present in your stem cells. The most common example I’ve heard is of storing stem cells to help a potential future sibling, not the baby directly. Or am I mistaken?

It has been used for the baby themselves & siblings :)

Some cases where babies use them themselves: https://www.nature.com/articles/bmt2012146

https://pediatrics.duke.edu/news/umbilical-cord-blood-improv...

I understand that it happens, my question is the prevalence. When I looked into banking cord blood I found a lot of ‘possible’ and one-off cases, but no actual statistics about how likely it was to be useful. That made it unpalatable, especially compared to the known benefits of delayed clamping.

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