Thanks to CIHR-funding, national collaboration and a lot of perseverance, a team of researchers is embarking on a journey to provide evidence on an unanswered question about blood transfusion. Learn more about the work behind the new, SexMatters clinical trial on sex-matched versus mismatched red blood cell transfusions in this blog.

Canadian Blood Services’ senior scientist, Dr. Donald R. Branch and his lab have recently contributed to the discovery of new information about the regulation of neutrophils – a type of immune cell in blood that fights infections. These results have been published in the high-impact scientific journal, Nature, and add to our understanding of inflammation.

Since 2018, Canadian Blood Services has supported the development of evidence-based guidelines on red blood cell transfusion in patients with hemoglobinopathies through its work with the International Collaboration for Transfusion Medicine Guidelines (ICTMG). Hemoglobinopathies include sickle cell disease, thalassemia and other conditions that affect the structure, chemistry, or production of red blood cells. This blog describes recent efforts to update the ICTMG’s hemoglobinopathies guideline.

The 2024 Canadian Blood Services’ Lay Science Writing Competition is open for submissions from research trainees in Canadian Blood Services’ research network until Friday, June 14, 2024. The theme this year is: “Connecting science with society”. Additional competition details available in this post!

In this blog, Dr. Brodie Nolan describes how Canadian Blood Services’ Blood Efficiency Accelerator Award Program (BEAP) is supporting the development of national best practices and a new registry for lifesaving transfusions that occur outside of hospitals.

or this blog, we invited Heather Sampson, the Chair of Canadian Blood Services’ Research Ethics Board, to reflect on her experience with research ethics and what she looks forward to in this role.

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.

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.

Canadian Blood Services supports capacity building in transfusion medicine through the support of research and physician trainees. In this blog, trainees reflect on their experiences attending CSTM 2023 in Montreal.

In a presentation recorded as part of the 5 à 7 Research Talks series hosted by Queen’s University, Canadian Blood Services adjunct scientist Dr. Jeannie Callum breaks down how to efficiently deliver blood transfusions and highlights the innovation and engineering at play to ensure bleeding patients get the right blood they need in just the right way at the right time.