KRIO has submitted an application to the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office to patent a new method for processing and storing mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). MSCs are stem cells present in the umbilical cord connective tissue. The significance of the new and unique method is that it enables physicians to isolate more stem cells in a better condition from the umbilical cord at birth than with standard methods. Consequently, the new method leads to a more effective stem cell therapy when samples are used.

KRIO Institute, the largest stem cell bank in Hungary started operations 15 years ago. It first processed and stored stem cells from umbilical cord blood, but in 2011 core activities were expanded with the storage of stem cells isolated from umbilical cord tissue, which are mesenchymal stem cells. The new method is now successfully applied to enhance the effectiveness of this widely used method.

The storage of mesenchymal stem cells is important because they are used more and more often in clinical therapies, both to improve the effectiveness of umbilical cord blood stem cell therapy and to repair various tissues due to their ability to transform into any kind of cells or tissues such as cartilage, bone or adipose. Their immunosuppressive characteristics have been successfully utilised to prevent GvHD (Graft-versus-host disease) and to enhance engraftment of stem cells of other sources. Therapy using stem cells of connective tissue is considered the most thriving field of regenerative medicine today.

Due to its internationally unique method, now under patent procedure, KRIO Institute provided stem cells for the first stem cell transplantation in Central Europe that involved mesenchymal stem cells in 2012.

Stem cells stored in a family stem cell bank were used for the first time in Hungary for a stem cell transplantation in 2010, for which KRIO Institute also provided stem cells. Since that time, two more successful transplantations have taken place in Hungary in which samples stored by KRIO Institute were used.