News on Blood Disorders and Blood Safety
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Research Feature
Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood. And according to the American Red Cross, a single donation can save up to three lives. On June 14, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) joins the World Health Organization (WHO) in observing World Blood Donor Day. Simone Glynn, M.D., M.P.H., chief of the Blood Epidemiology and...
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Research Features
Chris Camp recalls the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when being diagnosed as HIV positive was considered a virtual death sentence. Doctors had no medications that could really help. People with the disease often did not survive more than a year or two. Camp, now 63, says he personally lost more than 500 friends. Among them: his first husband...
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News Release
Initial investment aims to advance accessible and scalable candidate interventions into clinical trials within 10 years The National Institutes of Health plans to invest at least $100 million over the next four years toward an audacious goal: develop affordable, gene-based cures for sickle cell disease (SCD) and HIV. The Bill & Melinda Gates...
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Research Feature
Here’s something that might surprise: blood transfusions are the most common medical procedure in the United States, with millions of Americans receiving them each year. They help save lives and that’s in part because the nation’s supplies of donated blood are safer than ever from pathogens such as HIV, hepatitis viruses, and Zika, researchers say...
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Research Feature
A conversation with Dr. Kolapo Oyebola It is not lost on Kolapo Oyebola, Ph.D., that half the sickle cell disease cases worldwide can be found in his native Nigeria. This tragic fact, said the National Institutes of Health (NIH) postdoctoral fellow, has long been top of mind—and he is bent on doing something about it. Something big. He wants to...
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News Release
A study of more than 1 million transfusion recipients does not suggest a change in red blood cell donation practices A new study has found that the sex or pregnancy history of red blood cell donors does not influence the risk of death among patients who receive their blood. The study adds to a growing body of literature examining whether blood...
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Research Feature
Soon after birth, a baby in the United States is tested for sickle cell disease, the often-devastating genetic blood disorder affecting more than 100,000 Americans and 20 million of people worldwide. If positive, that newborn typically begins a course of treatment that can greatly prolong life and help stave off complications of the disease. But in...