In August of this year, Canadian Blood Services CEO, Graham Sher will be leading a climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro as part of the “Campaign For All Canadians” – a campaign designed to raise funds for the development and maintenance of a national public cord blood bank in Canada. Together with 7 other  Canadian Blood Services colleagues and around a dozen industry members, Canadian Blood Services Research Associate and UBC Clinical Assistant Professor, Katherine Serrano, will be joining in this massive effort.

Canada is the only G8 country without a national public cord blood bank. Cord blood is a rich source of hematopoietic stem cells which can be used to treat over 50 diseases and disorders including leukemia, lymphoma, aplastic anemia, inherited immune system disorders, metabolic disorders and sickle cell disease. Today there are approximately 1000 Canadians waiting for a life-saving stem cell transplant. In the absence of a public cord blood bank, stem cells obtained from bone marrow and peripheral blood are the main source of stem cells in Canada but it proves to be a difficult task to obtain a match as there are not enough donors and the current registry does not reflect the ethnic diversity of Canadian patients. There are 46 public cord blood banks in 27 countries but in Canada, umbilical cords are still discarded at birth. It is time for this to change.

Katherine works at the CBR in Dr. Dana Devine’s Research Lab trying to understand the factors involved in the deterioration of blood cell quality during storage. She hopes that the information gained from this research can be applied to improve the quality of blood components and ultimately lead to better outcomes for transfusion recipients.

In an unusual change of venues, Katherine’s newest program to improve patient care in Canada, sees her training in the gym and hiking the North Shore trails trying to accumulate vertical as she trains to summit Africa’s tallest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, for the “Campaign For All Canadians”.

To support Katherine in her effort to help build Canada’s national public cord blood bank, you can visit her donation webpage.

All donations are directed to the cord bank initiative and official tax receipts for donations of $20 or more will be provided.