Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

This research addresses serious challenges associated with blood transfusion: quality of stored platelets and the prevention of bacterial growth. Platelet transfusion is used for treating patients suffering e.g. from cancer and excessive blood loss (accident victims). In North America, approximately 4.5 million units of platelets are transfused every year. Currently platelets are stored in plastic containers which are originally not designed to store platelets at room temperature. There is very little innovation in platelet storage over the years. The quality of stored platelets decreases due to the surface induced damage by the current conventional storage bags. Transfusion of bacterial contaminated platelets is another longstanding serious complication. The incidence of bacterial contamination associated with platelet storage is as high as 1 per every 1500 units and represents a huge cost as every platelet unit is tested for contamination to avoid septic reactions in patients. Thus improving the quality of stored platelets, shelf-life and develop methods to prevent bacterial growth will significantly availability, reduce the wastage and increase transfusion efficiency. Our project seeks novel platelet storage devices based on latest breakthroughs at UBC on novel one-step universal antibiofilm coating and inhibitors that scavenge platelet activating molecules. The proposed device will improve the quality of stored platelets and increase the shelf-life by providing an environment that is highly cell compatible in comparison to the current storage bags. We anticipate that this will extend the storage life of platelets significantly compared to the current 5 days. Importantly this new device can be used in conjunction with the newly approved pathogen inactivation technologies by improve the platelet quality. The benefits over current methods will be substantial as it avoid wastage and increase safety and have significant cost savings to our health system.