The discovery of iPSC technology in 2012 was one of the most significant medical innovations in our lifetime. It has meant that humans now have access to fully pluripotent stem cells, and are no longer tied to finding multipotent adult stem cells through highly invasive methods such as liposuction surgery and bone marrow extractions. The iPSC discovery has allowed us to leverage any type of cell and have them converted into an embryonic-like stem cell, an iPSC. This removes both the cost and painful traditional methods of harvesting stem cells; but it also removes the pressure that many families feel around the single moment in time that they can harvest their child’s umbilical cord cells, which themselves are only multipotent. With Acorn, these families can now collect cells at any point in their child’s life. iPSCs matter because they allow Acorn to offer accessible and affordable live cell collection for future medical use.
