mission

mission

donate now

Each year over 100,000 Americans are diagnosed with blood cancers.

Currently there are over 70,000 African Americans with sickle cell disease

Unlike private cord blood banks, the NCUBB will serve anyone of any age in need of cord blood.

mission

Our Mission

The Joanne Pang Foundation, a 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization, is passionately committed to transforming a dream into reality.

We will raise the funds required to launch the Northern California Umbilical Cord Blood Bank (NCUBB).

The NCUBB will be the first non-profit, public umbilical cord blood bank in Northern California. While there are other cord blood banks in the San Francisco Bay Area, they are for profit and unable to accept public donations.

Unlike private cord blood banks, the NCUBB will serve anyone of any age in need of cord blood.

To launch the NCUBB in the spring of 2009, we must raise $2.5 million during 2008 for our clinical partner, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Children’s Hospital.

As part of the Pediatric Blood and Bone Marrow Transplant Program at UCSF, the NCUBB will be led by Morton J. Cowan, M.D. As Director of UCSF’s Pediatric Blood and Bone Marrow Transplant Program, Dr. Cowan is widely recognized as one of the world’s pre-eminent authorities in bone marrow and stem cell transplantation.

The vast majority of cord blood stem cells available from the approximately 100,000 births annually in the Bay Area are discarded as biological waste. The goal of the NCUBB is to capture these life saving stem cells and bank them for future use.

The genetic diversity of the Bay Area lends itself well to achieving the NCUBB’s goal of being a leader in the national inventory of cord blood.

Additional Goals

In addition to establishing the NCUBB, the Joanne Pang Foundation is dedicated to promoting education and awareness of various blood and marrow diseases, supporting the advancement of clinical research and providing patient assistance and family support.