World Hemophilia Day, an international awareness day for hemophilia and other bleeding disorders, is held annually on April 17. Hemophilia, an inherited blood disorder that affects mostly men, impairs a person’s ability to clot blood. A study led by a researcher from the McMaster Centre for Transfusion Research suggests more men have hemophilia worldwide than previously thought, highlights the need for improved hemophilia care, and helps predict demand for the plasma protein products used to treat patients.

Congratulations to the recipients of funding recently awarded through the Centre for Innovation’s BloodTechNet Award Program and Graduate Fellowship Program. This funding supports innovators in education and graduate students conducting research in the field of transfusion science.

Donated red blood cell units are a vital component of patient care, supporting patients with a wide variety of disorders. However, not all blood units are the same, and the benefit they can deliver to a patient can vary from unit to unit. Read on to learn about a unique device developed in a research laboratory at the Centre for Blood Research that can sort stored red blood cells based on their “squeezability”. This reflects how well red blood cells can squeeze their way through the circulation after a transfusion and could help identify “super-storers”.

For patients who have cardiac surgery, the risk of severe blood loss is high if they have a condition called acquired hypofibrinogenemia — this means they have an undersupply of an essential blood clotting protein called fibrinogen. Doctors aim to minimize their bleeding with a fibrinogen replacement product, either cryoprecipitate or fibrinogen concentrate, to restore clotting factors to normal levels. A recent study that compared both products could have an impact on how cardiac patients are treated in Canada.

“There is absolutely no evidence of transfusion transmission for COVID-19, or any other coronavirus,” says Dr. Steven Drews, associate director of microbiology at Canadian Blood Services.

Congratulations to Dr. Aditi Khandelwal, winner of the 2019-2020 Lay Science Writing Competition. Today’s post features her heartfelt winning entry.

The Centre for Innovation is delighted to announce the winner of the 2019-2020 Canadian Blood Services Lay Science Writing Competition. Read on to find out who won and when you can read their heartfelt winning entry.

Do you know of an individual whose contributions might be worthy of the Canadian Blood Services Lifetime Achievement Award? To receive this honour, a nominee’s landmark contributions must be recognized as both extraordinary and world class in the field of transfusion or transplantation medicine, stem cell or cord blood research in Canada and/or abroad. Nominations are open until May 19, 2020.

The 2020 competition for one of the Centre for Innovation’s most exciting and impactful research funding programs is now open. The Intramural Research Grant Program is a long-standing program that supports research to improve the safety and efficacy of blood products and the blood system in general.

Although it doesn’t happen often, sometimes patients will have a bad reaction during or after a blood transfusion. Surveillance systems set up to monitor the safety of the blood supply in Canada keep track of incidents like these so that issues potentially affecting patient safety can be identified. A recently published guide on reporting adverse transfusion events, available on Canadian Blood Services’ professional education website, helps make the reporting process easier to understand.