Professor Eliane Gluckman

                                                                                                                                 ‏01/11/2011

Professor Eliane Gluckman at the Bedomaich Chayi Cord Blood Bank

Professor Eliane Gluckman of France, one of the leading hematologists worldwide who pioneered cord blood transplanting in 1988, visited the Bedomaich Chayi Cord Blood Bank this week. Professor Gluckman is at present  the President of Eurocord (the European activity of public cord blood operations) and the President of the European School of Hematology. Formerly, she directed the Department of Bone Marrow Transplants in the St. Louis Hospital of Paris and was President of the European Group for Bone Marrow Transplant (EBMT).

The  visit of Prof. Gluckman was in the presence of Professor Gideon Bach - Medical Director of the Bedomaich Chayi Cord Blood Bank; Dr. Moshe Yeshurun – Director of the Department of Bone Marrow Transplants at Beilinson Hospital; Dr. Moshe Yisraeli – specialist of tissue matching and coordinator of searches and transplants of the Clalit Health Insurance and the Schneider and Beilinson Hospitals; as well as  the Bedomaich Chayi laboratory director and staff of Bedomaich Chayi.

During the visit, the participants explained the organization's activities to Professor Gluckman, pointing out the many accomplishments it has achieved already in the past 5 years and, its development in recent years, its plans for the future.

One important subject discussed during the visit was the issue of patients belonging to ethnic minorities or of mixed ethnic groupd such as the Jewish edoth. Many of the patients belonging to minority groups have great difficulties in finding suitable donors at present. Professor Gluckman noted that this is a global problem and one of the great challenges of public cord blood banks worldwide.

Professor Bach presented an approach the Bedomaich Chayi laboratories adopted four years ago. This involves accepting a lower cell number threshold for preserving cord blood units donated by mothers of ethnic minorities or mixed ancestry, in order to increase their representation in the public bank. A similar approach was recently adopted by the cord blood bank of England and other places in the world.

Due to this approach, about 45% of the frozen units in the Bedomaich Chayi Blood Bank are now from births of mixed ethnic origin. 

During her visit, Professor Gluckman discussed the public cord blood banks of France, which are fully state-funded. These banks have set a target of collecting 30,000 units at state expense within 5 years.

At the end of her visit, Professor Gluckman expressed her impression and appreciation of the great scope of activity and high professional level of the blood-bank staff, summarized the developments and trends in the field of cord blood transplants worldwide, and promised to do her utmost to advance the interests of the Bedomaich Chayi Cord Blood Bank.

Professor Gluckman's visit is part of a series of such visits by physicians, scientists, and leading world-class experts, whose guidelines and advice are important milestones in promoting the organization and its goals.