Ambition
Provide the research evidence to inform and underpin strategies for growing and diversifying services to donors, patients and the production of substances of human origin (SoHO)
Objectives
- Pilot donor recruitment strategies informed by research on donor motivation, knowledge and perception information
- Gain a deeper understanding of donor lifestyle, health, epidemiology and perceptions
- Expand of component provision for patients and health researchers
- Collate blood component usage, clinical practice and patient outcome to inform future policy
Actions
- Marketing strategies: Develop population specific donor recruitment strategies and monitor for effectiveness. Using social scientific methodologies, expand understanding of donor perceptions, barriers and motivations.
- Donor Cohort: Create a cohort of donors for on-going biomedical assessment for the purposes of evaluating and developing public health, surveillance and infectious disease screening policies. Gain a deeper understanding of our donor populations (whole blood, apheresis, plasma, rare) and the factors impacting donor recruitment, qualification and welfare. Bridge the data gap between donor and SoHO product quality, function and transfusion outcome.
- Cold-Stored Platelets: Better understand the function and quality of cold-stored platelets, as part of a Health Research Board Applied Partnership Award (HRB-APA) with the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, in preparation for producing this re-emerging blood component.
- Platelet Lysate: Re-purpose unused platelets, ready for discard, to produce platelet lysate, as a more ethical alternative to Foetal Calf Serum for cellular growth and expansion.
- Pan European Transfusion Initiative(PETRA): Support the development of a federated European vein-to-vein data infrastructure, through expert collaboration with European Blood Alliance and European Haematology Association colleagues. Data collated will model blood component usage, clinical guideline adherence and outcome.
- Cells for GMP-manufacture: Re-purpose immune cells, collected in filters through the donation (apheresis) or production (whole blood) process to produce ‘GMP-ready’ cells for commercial manufacture.