Biobanks, A Business Like Any Other?
Our journalists investigate into the controversial biobank sector. In 2019, 250,000 European families who thought they were protecting their children from rare genetic diseases by entrusting their babies' stem cells to a private umbilical cord blood bank saw their babies' stem cells vanish in Poland as the biobank went bankrupt. Insufficient storage conditions, vague or even false promises, uncertain legal framework: all the red flags were there for Cryosave, the Swiss company accused of fraudulent bankruptcy. So what happened to the 630,000 samples entrusted to Cryosave when it was taken over by a Polish company? Is the storage of human tissue a business like any other? How are stem cells used in the medical field? A thorough look into the hazards linked to biobanking.
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