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mk  ·  2774 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: We made a video for Forever Labs -- I dig it.

We use an aspiration, which is a direct draw of a small amount of bone marrow. Mobilization (the process used by DKMS) is more expensive and time-consuming, and doesn't capture the entire bone marrow niche. That said, if you are donating marrow for a transplant, you want a large number of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), and without expanding them in a lab, mobilization is an easier way to get a large enough number.

It's our goal to collect and store a sufficient number of cells (HSCs, but also bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells, endothelial progenitor cells, and others) that can be expanded for many different uses in the future. You could take what we collect and use it for a BM transplant, but it may require expansion of the HSCs first, or a longer engraftment period.