Research. Education. Discovery.

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done, knowing full well it was something only we could do. At the end of the day, Canadian Blood Services got this done. A child has been treated because we were adamant we were going to provide a solution."

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.

Cord blood is a rich and important source of stem cells for transplantation. Recent research from Canadian Blood Services has shown how tests of thawed cord blood samples could be improved so that they produce results that better reflect the quality of the cord blood unit. Improving these tests could increase the number of cord blood units that can be released for transplantation.

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.