ABOUT US

The umbilical cord blood program was established in 1996 to meet the needs of a growing population of cancer patients who became candidates for stem cell transplants after their stem cells were damaged or destroyed during aggressive treatment for cancer or other diseases.

Today Community Blood Services operates the State of New Jersey’s only public cord blood bank, known as the New Jersey Cord Blood Bank (NJCBB). We also offer a private family cord blood bank under the Elie Katz Umbilical Cord Blood Program (EKUCBP). In addition, we provide processing and storage for private cord blood companies through our contract laboratory services and our cord blood laboratory offers a variety of high-quality products for research purposes.

Parents can arrange for the safe and painless collection of their child’s cord blood, which contains life-saving stem cells, after their child’s birth. Those cells can then be donated to the NJCBB for use by any child or adult with a life-threatening disease such as cancer, leukemia, sickle cell anemia, cerebral palsy, or other rare genetic disease or immune deficiency, or they can be saved for future use if needed by that particular child, a sibling or a parent through the EKUCBP. Cord blood stem cells are currently being used to treat more than 70 diseases and may be the treatment of choice in the near future for such diseases as diabetes, heart disease, breast cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, as well as spinal cord injuries and many other serious diseases.