Interdisciplinary team proposes technology-driven roadmap to safer, personalized blood transfusions

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (08/14/2023) — Proposed new technology could revolutionize current blood storage and quality monitoring practices, allowing for better matching and outcomes for patients, says an interdisciplinary team of collaborators across the United States that includes leaders at the University of Minnesota Medical School. The work, led by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

”Blood transfusion could be transformed by the technology we recommend,” said Susan M. Wolf, JD, a professor of law and medicine at the U of M Medical School and  Law School and one of the article’s co-authors. 

Lab-on-a-chip technology and machine learning can improve current systems for storing and monitoring blood. This is done by allowing more precise measurements to assess the quality of stored blood units and better match patients to available blood for transfusions. The authors say that these innovative technologies may be especially critical for seriously ill patients and those on chronic transfusion regimens or undergoing major surgeries.

In addition to laying out a roadmap for suggested changes to the current system, the study emphasized that continued collaboration among scientists, engineers, ethicists, artificial intelligence experts, patients and industry partners is essential to transform current practices.

This PNAS article was written by an interdisciplinary team collaborating on the National Science Foundation-funded Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems (ATP-BioSM). 

“ATP-BioSM is proud to be part of this work that outlines the future of diagnostics in a blood product. This points the way for microfluidic technologies to improve the use of preserved cell therapy products for better patient outcomes,” said John Bischof, PhD, director of the ERC and the Institute for Engineering in Medicine.

Preparation of this PNAS article was supported, in part, by the $26 million NSF grant funding for ATP-BioSM (EEC-1941543) and by several NIH grants. University of Minnesota Medical School researchers contributing to this pioneering work are Bischof; David McKenna, MD, director of the Division of Transfusion Medicine in the Medical School; and Wolf, who also leads the ERC’s Ethics & Public Policy Component and chairs the University’s Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences. The lead and senior authors of this article are Ziya Isiksacan, PhD, and Osman Berk Usta, PhD, at Massachusetts General Hospital.     

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NIH grants include: 5R01HL145031, 5R21GM136002, 1R21GM141683, R01HL146442, R01HL149714, R01HL148151, R21HL150032, R01AR081529, R00HL143149, R01HL157803, 
R01 DK134590.

About the University of Minnesota Medical School
The University of Minnesota Medical School is at the forefront of learning and discovery, transforming medical care and educating the next generation of physicians. Our graduates and faculty produce high-impact biomedical research and advance the practice of medicine. We acknowledge that the U of M Medical School, both the Twin Cities campus and Duluth campus, is located on traditional, ancestral and contemporary lands of the Dakota and the Ojibwe, and scores of other Indigenous people, and we affirm our commitment to tribal communities and their sovereignty as we seek to improve and strengthen our relations with tribal nations. For more information about the U of M Medical School, please visit med.umn.edu. 

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