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Abstract Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), described in 1997 by Asahara et al .,constitute a heterogeneous population of circulating cells in peripheral blood. Their origin is found in multipleprecursors, such as hemangioblasts, non-hematopoietic precursors, monocytic cells, or tissue-resident stem cells. Endothelial progenitor cells play an important role in vascular repair and new vessel formation, because of their capacity to proliferate, migrate, differentiate in vivo and in vitrointo endothelial cells, and incorporate into the preexisting endothelium. Thus, phenotypically, they have morphofunctional characteristics of both hematopoietic and mature endothelial cells (Silva et al., 2012) . The study included 50 samples of human umbilical cord blood (hUCB) collected from women during normal labor andafter taken their informed consent at the Obstetric and Gynecology Department Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University. The work up of the endothelial progenitor cells was performed at the Unit of Biochemistry andMolecular Biology at The Medical Biochemistry Department, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University |