The Chinese Marrow Donor Program(CMDP) signed an agreement on Tuesday with the Beijing Cord Blood Stem Cell Bank to share its bank of 10,000 stem cell data reserves.

Under the agreement, the two marrow banks will share marrow reserves information in order to find donors for leukemia patients.

Established in 1992, the CMDP, also known as the Data Bank of Chinese Hematopoietic Stem Cell Donors, has about 670,000 samples of hematopoietic stem cells.

"The newly added stem cell information would increase the matchrate of hematopoietic stem cells," said CMDPs director Hong Junling.

"However, 30 percent of the patients still will not find a matching donor despite the increase," Hong said.

China had more than one million leukemia patients with around 40,000 new cases every year.

Liu Kaiyan, director of the Beijing Cord Blood Bank, said more than 8,000 successful umbilical cord blood transplants had been conducted around the world, compared with fewer than 300 in China.

"For the better use of human umbilical cord blood stem cells, an improvement in clinical medicine and a bigger databank are both needed," Liu said.

The CMDP has signed agreements with umbilical cord blood banks in Shanghai and Guangzhou in information sharing.

Umbilical Cord blood is rich in stem cells that can produce different types of human cells, including blood cells that carry oxygen, fight disease and help stop bleeding.

Umbilical cord blood stem cells can be used to treat more than 75 life-threatening diseases, including leukemia, lymphomas, and congenital metabolic problems.

(Xinhua News Agency September 27, 2007)