Taking a look back at a few of your favourite articles of 2023 from the Research, Education, and Discovery Blog.

Every year Canadian Blood Services publishes a report highlighting its achievements in research and development. The Innovation & Portfolio Management Annual Impact Report, 2022 – 2023, is now available on blood.ca.

Read about the annual Research Day event held at the Centre for Blood Research (CBR) in this blog post written by CBR summer student alumni.

Canadian Blood Services, in collaboration with the Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) collaborative, conducted a study to understand plateletpheresis-associated lymphopenia, a rare condition associated with platelet donation. The study found that implementing a procedure called plasma rinseback significantly mitigated the development of lymphopenia in frequent, long-term platelet donors. Canadian Blood Services routinely uses plasma rinseback, ensuring the well-being of generous platelet donors and reducing the occurrence of lymphopenia.

Colton Strong’s research aims to use cutting-edge technology to genetically engineer donor platelets so that they can stop bleeding faster and create stronger clots than standard platelets.

In May 2023, 51 physicians and laboratory technicians from across all five provinces in Rwanda participated in-person in a 2-day Transfusion Camp Train-the-Trainer workshop to provide training on transfusion management

In this blog, we showcase the Canadian Blood Services Graduate Fellowship Program as a platform for outstanding research and innovation in the field of blood transfusion and transplantation science. We highlight the remarkable accomplishments of current recipients, demonstrating the program's impact on healthcare. We hope to inspire potential applicants to pursue this opportunity.

Recent research involving Canadian Blood Services researchers highlights the relationship between donor age and the quality of blood products like red blood cells, while considering the complex interplay between storage conditions, oxidative stress, and genetic factors. Though the clinical implications remain uncertain, these findings underscore the importance of ongoing research in optimizing blood storage practices and continuing to improve the efficacy of blood transfusions for patients in need.

Awa Diagne, a research assistant at Canadian Blood Services, describes her experience working on the Piloting and evaluating a community-led strategy for diversifying the stem cell registry project over summer 2023.

Dr. Sheila O’Brien, Canadian Blood Services’ associate director of epidemiology and surveillance, recently joined Public Health Ontario’s (PHO) webinar series to share ongoing efforts to collect and analyze data on the rates of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID) infection in the blood donor population. This blog summarizes presentation highlights and provides an update on Canadian Blood Services’ contributions to the COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) seroprevalence research.