For the 200 Nova Scotians waiting for a lifesaving organ or tissue transplant, new legislation offers hope.

The Intramural Research Grant Program, one of the Centre for Innovation’s most responsive and impactful research funding programs, and the Kenneth J. Fyke Program, which supports health services and policy research, are both open for applications.

The Centre for Innovation is the heart of Canadian Blood Services’ research and development activities. Its latest annual report, covering the fiscal year 2019-2020, is now available on blood.ca.

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 Centre for Innovation is delighted to launch our third annual Lay Science Writing Competition. This year’s theme – Challenges 2020 – provides an outlet for trainees to tell their stories of research, science and communication during this unprecedented and challenging year.

Dr. Isra Levy is in charge of medical and scientific support for all aspects of Canadian Blood Services’ work — how does he prepare for this job during a pandemic? To better understand what crisis leadership is, I asked Isra to share the lessons he has learned through his leadership journey.

The third module of Canadian Clinical Guide to Organ Donation just launched.

Dr. Jennie Haw is a scientist at Canadian Blood Services’ Centre for Innovation. As a sociologist, she’s interested in understanding how health and health systems relate to the individual and society. As we celebrate Cord Blood Awareness Month this July, we sat down with Dr. Haw to talk about her research and its impact on cord blood banking.

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.

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.