DURHAM, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 22, 2006--Aldagen, Inc. today announced that clinicians at Duke University Medical School have used its ALDESORT product to isolate stem cells from cord blood and safely infused these cells into patients. The on-going clinical study is led by Dr. Joanne Kurtzberg, the director of the Duke Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Program and the Carolinas Cord Blood Bank, a public cord blood bank at Duke University Medical Center. Kurtzberg's team has performed 650 cord blood transplants in children -- more than any other center in the world. In recent years, Kurtzberg has expanded cord blood's application to treat a wide range of genetic diseases, like Krabbe Disease and Hurler Syndrome, which cause progressive physical and cognitive deficits leading to death in early childhood.
