Canadian Blood Services’ chief scientist has been appointed director of the Centre for Blood Research at the University of British Columbia. This new role deepens Canadian Blood Services’ lasting collaboration with the centre and is part of Dr. Devine’s longstanding pursuit of bringing new discoveries to patients in meaningful ways. “As one of the founders of the Centre for Blood Research, I’ve watched it grow over the years. In some ways, it feels like I’m coming full circle,” says Dr. Devine. “It’s one of the largest academic blood centres in the world, and one of the most multidisciplinary

Dr. Celina Montemayor-Garcia joined Canadian Blood Services in August 2020 as a medical officer. As a researcher and transfusion medicine specialist, her main interest is understanding how genomics and bioinformatics can be used to improve care for transfusion patients. She spoke to us about advances in precision medicine and genomics, and what they could mean for the future of blood banks. When Dr. Celina Montemayor-Garcia, medical officer at Canadian Blood Services, was looking for a career in medicine that would allow her to combine research and clinical service, she found her calling in

IVIg is the wonder drug you’ve probably never heard of – yet. Used to treat many different conditions, intravenous immune globulin (IVIg) is manufactured from the plasma of thousands of patients combined. While it’s not exactly clear how it works, IVIg is known to alter a person’s immune response. As such, it’s often called an “immune modulator” and is mostly used as an effective treatment for immune and inflammatory conditions. Finding alternatives to IVIg and ensuring that when used, it is used appropriately, are important areas of research at Canadian Blood Services. This is because IVIg is

As we welcome the new year, take a look back with us at the top five blog posts of 2020. 1. Why you won't get COVID-19 from a blood transfusion Unsurprisingly, three of our top five blog posts were related to COVID-19. In this post, Dr. Steven Drews, associate director of microbiology at Canadian Blood Services, explained why there's no evidence to suggest that COVID-19 is transfusion-transmissible. 2. "Only we can help": breaking down barriers for a child with a rare condition "What do we do when there’s a child in Canada with a rare disorder, and only we can help? We had to work together and

With the advent of November comes a much-anticipated event for the Centre for Blood Research (CBR) community: the Earl W. Davie Symposium. This annual, one-day conference features expert presentations on bleeding, thrombosis and coagulation research. Hosted in honour of Dr. Earl Davie, the 2020 symposium was held virtually to great success. Over 300 registrants from a mix of local, national and international audiences gathered online on November 17th to honour Earl’s legacy and participate in an excellent program with presentations by leading experts, trainees and patients. Now in its

Housed within Canadian Blood Services’ Medical Affairs and Innovation division, the Centre for Innovation supports Canadian Blood Services to continuously improve blood products and their utilization to help every patient, match every need, and serve every Canadian. The Centre’s annual report details the achievements that have been made by our network of scientists, medical experts, research partners, and collaborators. It is filled with stories and insights that highlight the Centre’s research, development, training, education and engagement activities. A selection of 2019-2020 year in review

There are inconsistencies in criteria and practice of brain death (death by neurologic criteria) both internationally and within countries. The World Brain Death Project was created to formulate recommendations about the determination of brain death based on extensive reviews of the literature and expert opinion of a large multi-disciplinary, international panel, including representation from intensive care (adult and pediatric), critical care nursing, neurocritical care, neurology and neurosurgery. The recommendations were recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association

Thanks to a collaboration among Canada’s leading experts in transfusion medicine, front-line physicians can access Treat the Bleed, a new website that supports clinical decision making in the management of bleeding. The content is presented in a practical and user-friendly format: top questions on three topics (warfarin reversal, direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs), and massive hemorrhage protocol) are answered in concise text using plenty of infographics We spoke with one of the contributing experts, Dr. Andrew Shih, medical director and regional medical leader in transfusion medicine at the

The 2020 Canadian Blood Services’ Lay Science Writing Competition has launched and is open for submissions until Dec. 15, 2020. This year, we’re asking trainees to test their plain writing skills and use clear language to send submissions under the theme “Challenges 2020”. The theme is open to interpretation, but submissions could include stories about challenges in the trainee’s own research, challenges in conducting or communicating research, challenges faced by a trainee’s field of research, or, more broadly, challenges facing science, research, education and communication in 2020

Understanding blood compatibility is critical to ensuring safe transfusions, but in some cases, identifying compatible blood types for a patient can be challenging. That’s because blood can be typed according to 38 different blood group systems and hundreds of different blood cell antigens within these systems—not just the familiar ABO and Rh types—and knowing if a patient has antibodies to these antigens is crucial to their transfusion care. Data collected by the Public Health Agency of Canada from 2011–2015 show that adverse reactions to receiving a blood transfusion, triggered when a