Lifesaving umbilical cord transplants may soon be available to more people with $24 million in total funding set aside by the federal government to create the first national cord blood banking system.

Stories of hope and healing fill the hallways at the Duke University Medical Center pediatric bone marrow transplants ward. They treat children who come in suffering from sickle-cell anemia, leukemia, genetic diseases that affect the development of the brain and other body tissues, and cancers that are resistant to standard therapy.

Instead of bone marrow transplants, the healing is often credited to stem cells acquired from a donor