US senators seek 5 more years of federal funding for stem cell program
Bipartisan team introduces legislation that can improve SCD treatment
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A bipartisan team of U.S. senators has introduced legislation to renew funding for a national initiative that connects people with blood disorders such as sickle cell disease (SCD) with unrelated donors for stem cell transplants.
If the legislation passes, the national initiative, known as the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program, would run for five more years, according to the NMDP, a nonprofit that operates the national registry of unrelated blood stem cell donors and cord blood units.
The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act of 2026 was introduced in the U.S. Senate last week by Democrats Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Tina Smith of Minnesota, alongside Republicans Tim Scott of South Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma. Companion legislature was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives a few months ago.
The move was applauded by the NMDP, which noted in an organization press release that the program “connects physicians to the best available life-saving cell options among the more than 42 million potential volunteer donors and hundreds of thousands of cord blood units listed on registries worldwide.”
Amy Ronneberg, CEO of NMDP, said “the goal of the Program has always been to help patients find their life-saving donor — a mission that remains as critical and urgent as ever.” Ronneberg thanked the four senators sponsoring the legislation.
“We are grateful for bipartisan support from our champions in Congress, especially Senators Reed, Scott, Smith and Lankford, who have stepped up to ensure that patients with blood cancers and other diseases can rely on this life-saving donor registry for years to come,” Ronneberg said.
Stem cell transplant program must be reauthorized by Congress
Hematopoietic stem cells, or HSCs, are cells that live in the bone marrow and are responsible for making new blood cells. An allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant, more commonly called a stem cell transplant or bone marrow transplant, involves replacing a person’s existing HSCs with those from a healthy donor.
For someone with SCD — a genetic disorder marked by an abnormal form of hemoglobin, the protein red blood cells use to carry oxygen — a stem cell transplant can be curative, allowing the body to produce blood cells with a healthy version of the protein. Stem cell transplants are also used to manage many types of blood cancers.
However, it’s often challenging for patients to find a donor who is a good match. That’s where the Transplantation Program comes in.
This federally-funded effort creates a registry of healthy volunteer donors who can be readily matched with people who need a stem cell transplant. It also maintains a registry of hundreds of thousands of cord blood, or blood collected from umbilical cords, which has stem cells that can be used for medical purposes.
[The C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program] is the gold standard of public-private partnership — in service of saving American lives — because the program has continually evolved and modernized to improve patients’ lives and longevity.
The initiative has been widely hailed as a massive public health success. According to NMDP, nowadays about 99% of adults with common blood cancers have a suitable match to a donor for a stem cell transplant.
Still, funding for the program needs to be periodically reauthorized by Congress, hence the newly introduced bipartisan legislation.
“This program is the gold standard of public-private partnership — in service of saving American lives — because the program has continually evolved and modernized to improve patients’ lives and longevity,” Ronneberg said.
The NMDP is also continuing to call on healthy adults — specifically those ages 18 to 35 — to join the national volunteer donor registry. More information is available on the organization’s website.
