Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) hold many advantages over embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and other somatic cells in clinical applications. MSCs are multipotent cells with strong immunosuppressive properties. They can be harvested from various locations in the human body (e.g., bone marrow and adipose tissues). Cryopreservation represents an efficient method for the preservation and pooling of MSCs, to obtain the cell counts required for clinical applications, such as cell-based therapies and regenerative medicine. Upon cryopreservation, it is important to preserve MSCs functional properties including immunomodulatory properties and multilineage differentiation ability. Further, a biosafety evaluation of cryopreserved MSCs is essential prior to their clinical applications. However, the existing cryopreservation methods for MSCs are associated with notable limitations, leading to a need for new or improved methods to be established for a more efficient application of cryopreserved MSCs in stem cell-based therapies. We review the important parameters for cryopreservation of MSCs and the existing cryopreservation methods for MSCs. Further, we also discuss the challenges to be addressed in order to preserve MSCs effectively for clinical applications.
Southeast Asian countries are at the forefront of public health pressures due to a confluence of factors such as population growth, urbanization, environmental pollution, and infectious diseases (re)emergence. Therefore, the ability to be able to conduct research addressing local and regional needs is of paramount importance. As such, biobanking activities, the standardized collection of biological samples, and associated data, developed over the past few decades supporting ongoing biomedical and clinical research, as well as surveillance are of critical importance. However, the regulatory landscape of biobanking is not widely understood and reported, which this narrative review aims to address for the ASEAN member states. It is evident that there are specific regulatory arrangements within each ASEAN member state, which though may be sufficient for the current level of operations, are unlikely to support a regional sharing of biological samples, data, and eventually benefits from the conducted research. Additionally, legacy and often-overlapping regulatory frameworks exist, which raise the need of an eventual consolidation under a single framework. Thus, this field requires further study as well as the creation of viable, practical proposals that would allow for biobanking harmonization and thus the exchange of biological samples and data to be achieved regionally, if not further afield.