
UBC researchers may have found a way to make donated blood universal - stormbrew
https://vancouversun.com/health/local-health/ubc-researchers-have-found-a-way-to-make-all-donated-blood-universal
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tait
This will be helpful if it comes to practical use, particularly for traumas.

But we will still need to test for compatibility.

There are something like 28 different blood groups: Duffy, Kidd, Kell, etc.

People who have antibodies to those other blood groups can have a reaction
even if given O negative blood.

(Source: I am board certified in Transfusion Medicine)

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pkaye
Do all those blood groups matter? How many different batches of blood do they
need to keep around to handle a majority of the population?

~~~
killjoywashere
> How many different batches of blood do they need to keep around to handle a
> majority of the population

I'm the medical director for the blood bank of the only trauma center in an
extremely remote location and a catchment of about 100,000 people. We operate
our own donor center and do our own crossmatch (tube testing FTW!). We have 45
units of RBCs, 65 units of FFP, and 1 platelet unit for this evening. We also
have 3 freezers full of frozen products and closely monitor our usage.

Obstetrics is probably the biggest user, but trauma may be the biggest in any
given month. Our high water mark in recent history is 58 units of various
products used for one patient a few months ago. We were nervous but got her
through it without breaking quarantine to release product (although the
quarantine units* were next on the agenda). We pushed 20 units a few days ago
for a post-partum hemorrhage.

Quarantine in this case refers to units that have been produced but the
infectious disease screening isn't complete yet, so we should not release them
for use.

Please donate blood.

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api_or_ipa
This could be a revolutionary innovation, just from the perspective of blood
logistics. In a perfect world, we'd all stock up on just O-negative blood and
use it everywhere but blood supplies are a scarce resource and we have to use
what we have so getting all responders to only carry O-negative just won't
scale. Imagine removing the tough question about what blood to use: do we use
the precious O-negative or do we carry a bit of everything and first test the
patient for what can work? By having a relatively plentiful universal supply,
we could reduce the amount of carried blood, decrease spoilage and decrease
the time it takes to get the patient the blood she/he needs. All these
benefits would be massively beneficial in improving patient outcomes, decrease
cost and streamline logistics, especially in the field where space is at a
premium.

It's obviously early stage, but I'd absolutely love to see the Canadian Blood
Service invest in lots of follow up studies to see how we can scale this
technology.

Also, it's always great to see my alma mater on HN :)

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thaumasiotes
> do we use the precious O-negative or do we carry a bit of everything and
> first test the patient for what can work?

Type O- is rare because being rhesus-negative is rare, but type O+ is quite
common.

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geomark
In some places, like where I live, rhesus-negative is _very_ rare, 0.2% of the
population for O- and B-, 0.1% for A-. It is usually tourists who need the
blood and the blood banks just don't have it. So we often see calls go out for
blood donors when a tourist has a serious injury. If this method to convert
blood works it would be very beneficial.

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kjeetgill
Key statements:

> Withers and his team previously developed enzymes that were capable of
> stipping away antigens, but this new kind is much more powerful and
> efficient.

> An enzyme-driven process was first discovered in 1982 and research has
> carried on ever since.

> “The (1982) enzyme was incredibly inefficient,” he said. This newly-
> discovered enzyme is “thousands” times better.

> “The other big key: our enzyme works on whole blood,” he said. Previous
> research only worked on blood that had been broken down into component
> parts. With this new process, blood taken straight from donors could be
> quickly converted into type-O negative, without much delay.

> “If it all works it will have a big practical advantage.”

Wow, I didn't even know this was even mostly possible since the 80s. As
exciting as this is, I suppose it's worth waiting and seeing if this is the
one that makes it to production.

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mediocrejoker
Headline of article is much less certain:

Researchers at the University of B.C. think they may have found a way to
transform a very common type of human blood — type-A — in the universally
usable type-O negative.

~~~
dang
Ok, we can squeeze a "may" into the title above.

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jdc
W/o video ads: [https://science.ubc.ca/news/gut-enzymes-could-hold-key-
produ...](https://science.ubc.ca/news/gut-enzymes-could-hold-key-producing-
universal-blood)

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wollstonecraft
Change headline to type O- they have not managed to make it Rh-negative.

~~~
ericpauley
Article says they can convert A-Positive to O-Negative, which means they have
removed the Rh.

~~~
Sniffnoy
No other sources I can find on this mention the rhesus factor; I suspect
that's a mistake in the article.

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PatriciaR
Hm... if true, this is both great and scary. The reasons it could be good are
covered in the article. I wonder if anyone else can see how dangerous this
could also be. Medical research is beautiful but can often be very dark. I
would hope there are regulations on usage. Always a shame to see promising
research be sold to big Pharma or any other business that doesn't put patient
care first.

~~~
ElCapitanMarkla
Why do you say it’s scary / dangerous?

~~~
jfoutz
I don’t know the op’s reason. I immediately thought of blood farmers
[https://www.wired.com/2011/06/red-market-
excerpt/](https://www.wired.com/2011/06/red-market-excerpt/)

But, uh, I’d hope this tech would help prevent that sort of thing.

~~~
PatriciaR
I don’t actually think tech is what we need to worry about. My concerns are
with access and affordability.

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21
While I understand why cells have ids on them to be able to detect self from
non-self, why is this also happening for blood cells, which are basically just
bags with no genetic information inside? What's the evolution reason to guard
against a foreign human blood cell?

~~~
mchahn
Am I wrong in thinking that blood compatibility is basically a big allergy
problem?

~~~
keithwhor
More generally, an immunological problem.

But... a huge proportion of all human health problems can be considered
immunological problems: overactive immunity (transplant rejections,
inflammation disorders like Crohn's) or impaired immunity (inability to
recognize cancers, acquired deficiencies from infection i.e. AIDS, etc.).

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j7ake
Does anybody have a link to a paper?

~~~
yorwba
I think it's not published yet, at least it doesn't appear in this list of
publications: [http://www.chem.ubc.ca/stephen-
withers#pane-221](http://www.chem.ubc.ca/stephen-withers#pane-221)

There's an older paper from 2015 though: " Toward Efficient Enzymes For The
Generation Of Universal Blood Through Structure-Guided Directed Evolution"
[https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja5116088](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ja5116088)

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BrainInAJar
This is just a great example of the amazing innovations that come out of
socialized medicine. Throw this in the face of anyone who tries to defend
private health care on the basis of innovation

~~~
geomark
I laughed.

