Umbilical cord as a source of immunomodulatory reagents

One of the main successes of cellular therapies in the last decade has been the generation of immunomodulating reagents for clinical use. Umbilical cord can be used to source such cell populations. In this chapter we will concentrate on describing the features of and the clinical experience with regulatory T-cells and mesenchymal stromal cells. Although relevant immunomodulating activity can also be ascribed to hematopoietic stem cells, that is the subject of another chapter of this book. Similarly, other populations have been isolated and demonstrated to exhibit immunosuppressive activity but, probably because of their small concentration and the difficulty in their expansion, they have not been developed any further.