Cells4Life laboratory

Cells4Life Ltd are the first wholly UK owned and based private cord blood storage facility. All cord blood samples are stored at our MHRA accredited laboratory in Sussex, which is operated and managed by Cells4Life Ltd staff.   Members of staff are on a 24 hour call out rota, with redundancy of staff in the UK at all times. Each member of staff has to undergo rigorous training for the processing protocols and methods used, to ensure the integrity of the cord blood samples is maintained at all times. 

Our cord blood processing laboratory is equipped with a state-of-the-art clean room and freezing technology that incorporates multiple safety features. This allows us to adhere to best possible scientific practice guidelines.

On arrival at our storage facility, every cord blood sample is processed to ensure protection during freezing, analysed to assess the total volume of blood collected and checked for viability. Samples of the cord blood are taken and sent to an independent pathology testing laboratory to assess presence of any contamination. The maternal blood sample provided with the cord blood sample is also tested for the presence of disease markers.

All cord blood samples are uniquely bar-coded prior to storage to allow failsafe identification with our advanced tracking software.

The umbilical cord blood sample is slowly frozen from room temperatures to minus 80 degrees Centigrade, using a controlled rate freeze protocol. The cord blood samples are then transferred to cryogenic temperatures for long-term storage within our MHRA approved jacketed vapour phase Isothermal liquid nitrogen tanks.

Each tank has a series of alarms and monitors, linked to automated back up systems which ensure the highest level of safety and security for each and every cord blood sample in our facility.