Abstract 1: A Brand-New Sourcing to Maximize Ethnic Diversity in Neonatal Stem Cell Collections and Correlated HLA Deep Understanding. Both to Improve Unrelated Cord Blood Units Inventory Efficiency and Biodata Based Drug Research

Introduction AfricaCord© by CORDSAVINGS Switzerland, is an initiative to secure genetic diversity for neonatal stem-cell therapeutics and research aiming to be an actual reservoir for cell therapies and a cutting-edge BIO+DATA support for new drug discovery. A Swiss-Kenya unique private-public partnership consisting first to harvest cord blood and neonatal tissues units in public hospital on Kenyan side then to have them sent, processed then stored at CORDSAVINGS Swiss laboratory. Objectives (1) Therapeutic: - at worldwide scale, improve public cbu repositories efficiency in particular among ethnic minorities thanks to a virgin source of HLA polymorphisms coming from cradle of humankind - at African scale, to target sickle cell anemia and newborn morbidity NGS sequencing of both of mother and newborn will allow systematic NIMA analysis to improve cbu stock release rates. (2) Research: again thanks to mother+newborn NGS, reveal genes variants that contribute to diseases and still not found in previous caucasian-origin-centric studies (infectious diseases in particular, as specific homozygous HLA alleles combinations are known as associated with certain protections or susceptibility). Results Methods & Results: - in 2023, after signing MoU with targeted Kenyan county and got set of authorizations at local and national level, we conducted a bio-logistic oriented feasibility study in order to prove first that whole chain can work from local biocollection to storage in Switzerland while fulfilling satisfactory medico-technical criteria - next stage: a 1’500 “Therapeutic-grade” cbu collection (additional 2’000 “R&D-high-grade” samples) to be sent to Switzerland for process and storage - Joint-Venture with Kenyan public authorities for having a complementary laboratory locally - optionally, to handle part of brand-new public hospital of the county to establish a Pan-African expertise center in SC therapies for newborns and SCA along with top-range HLA-centric R&D specialty Discussion Cbu based HSC therapies, currently at its worrisome bottom, hopefully to be revitalized by AfricaCord©. Regarding research, academic interest should be high (SC oriented clinical trials, population genetics departments etc.). To lead to cooperations with biotech-pharma seeking for straightforward and regular tools flow to improve their knowledge of genomic determinants of health and thus facilitate their drug discovery and translational research.