TEHRAN (FNA)- An Iranian official said tens of knowledge-based stem cell technology companies have given the country a pioneering role in Southwest Asia.

"Iran is considered as one of the pioneering countries in Southwest Asia region in the field of stem cells," Director of the Center for the Development of Strategic Technologies in Iran’s Presidential Department for Science and Technology Esmayeel Qaderifar told FNA on Tuesday.

He added that 140 knowledge-based companies in Iran are now active in the field of stem cells and regenerative medicine, adding that their activities are focused on cell therapy, cell treatment and regenerative medicine.

In relevant remarks last month, an official at Royan Institute said that Iranian medical centers are using the mesenchymal cells to treat patients infected with coronavirus.

“The mesenchymal cells which are derived from the umbilical cord tissue have special applications and incidentally, these cells are used in treating the neurological patients or they are at present used to treat the COVID-19-infected patients,” Head of Royan Institute’s Blood Bank Morteza Zarrabiyeh told FNA.

He added that the mesenchymal stem cells used to cure the coronavirus patients are derived from umbilical cord.

Zarrabiyeh said that the good point about these stem cells is that they do not need genetic matching and can be used to treat anyone infected with COVID-19 virus.

Also, in April, Head of Royan Institute’s Academic Jihad Abdolhossein Shahverdi had also explained about the method.

“In this treatment method, the mesenchymal cells in cord blood cells or bone marrow cells are used,” he told FNA.

He said that mesenchymal cells had earlier been used in treatment of certain incurable diseases, including those related to cartilage bone, with good results, expressing the hope that these cells can prove effective in healing coronavirus patients.

Shahverdi said that the ethics license has been issued for testing the method on coronavirus patients, voicing hope that the clinical tests would be successful.

Royan Institute is a public non-profitable organization which is affiliated to Academic Center for Education, Culture and Research (ACECR) and was established in 1991 as a research institute for Reproductive Biomedicine and infertility treatments.

The institute acts as leader of Stem Cell research and also one of the best clinics for infertility treatment. It has 81 scientific members and 232 researchers and lab technicians