Cord blood transplantation provides increased access to allogeneic HSCT for many patients who lack matched adult donors. However, it's success is limited by cell dosing and potency of the cord blood graft. Traditional parameters used for graft selection include HLA matching and cell dose. However, even when these parameters are optimized up to 20% of patients fail to engraft. Recent studies have demonstrated that recovery of total nucleated cells does not predict the potency of a given cord blood unit with adequate sensitivity. Other parameters, such as viable CD34, CFUs and ALDH bright cell content better predict cord blood potency at the time of thawing of the unit for transplantation. Improved methods of cord blood thawing also may enhance cellular recovery. In this session, various methods of assessing cord blood potency and methods of cord blood thawing will be presented. Discussion of advanced strategies to optimize assessment of cord blood potency will be discussed.