>Banking cells for the purpose of use later in regenerative medicine is supremely pointless. It is a hedge against technological development in cell reprogramming and repair
Obviously, I disagree that the hedge is pointless. I do agree that rejuvenation tech will improve, I am working on some, actually. However, IMO a youthful reservoir of multipotent cells represents an early onramp for many of these applications.
There are vast unknowns in cellular biology, and I never need go back more than a few months to find some largely unknown but recently discovered machinery: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28798046 Some have been known for a time, and yet remain poorly understood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_(organelle) Sometimes, just when we think we have a handle on something, we find that the reality is more complicated: http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v14/n6/full/nmeth.4293.h...
Not to mention the abysmal state of reproducibility in biomedical research: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778
Don't get me wrong, I am not a pessimist. We are making, and will continue to make, great strides. However, biology intervention in humans is very difficult. Even something as basic as male pattern baldness continues to confound us. Just because we have the tools in the lab, doesn't mean that we can practically apply them. However, we will be able to work upon cells ex vivo much sooner than we can in vivo... ;)
[1] https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2... [2] https://www.nature.com/news/japanese-man-is-first-to-receive... [3] https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/u...
Popular science has has been on the verge of immortality for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. My point isn't that it isn't happening, but statistically we are probably further away from cell repair than you think. If you have cash to burn, there are worse things to gamble on.
Pick a hundred cell lineages from skin samples, and merge back to the common root genome minus the stochastic mutations in their ancestors. Then apply CRISPR or some selection technique to the skin sample you've converted to iPSCs to obtain the genome you want. Most of that could be done with today's technology, were anyone so inclined.
Twenty years from now this will be an afternoon intro project on one of the lab machines in CellBio 101.
Let us say for the sake of argument, however, that the hedge turns out to be worthwhile, and the exceedingly unlikely course of biotechnology not progressing much past where it is now over the next 20 years takes place. Woe. But then having those banked cells is basically useless because there is very little of worth you can do with them. All of the potential cell therapy applications that might be rolled out today are marginal for someone at very late age.
So cell banking for future use in cell therapies is basically a business that is only useful to its customers if the biotechnology of cellular control both fails to advance and advances spectacularly.