Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

There is a significant clinical need for blood products used in blood transfusions. Typical clinical situations where blood is needed include traumatic or surgical bleeding, anemias and diseases that affect hemoglobin production. The Canadian Blood Services collects approximately 850,000 units of blood that are administered to thousands of patients each year. Blood is typically stored for about 42 days. Increasing evidence suggests that significant alterations occur in the structure and function of red blood cells (RBC) during this storage period, and that the transfusion of RBC that have been stored for this or longer periods of time may increase patient morbidity and mortality, especially in vulnerable patient populations. A technique that could rapidly characterize the suitability of stored RBCs could potentially have a significant impact on clinical practise but also serve as a tool to assess the blood quality in the development of new blood storage protocols. We have recently discovered a new technique for the rapid characterization of red blood cells that analyzes the frequencies of the sound waves produced when red blood cells are exposed to short pulses of laser light. In this technique, which is based on the photoacoustic effect, conventional optical spectroscopy (which provides functional information about the cell) is combined with ultrasound radiofrequency spectroscopy (which provides structural information about the cell), to assess the RBC suitability for transplantation. This novel technique can also be adapted to study other forms of red blood cell pathology. In this work, we propose to develop protocols that will allow the rapid characterization of blood products that are required for blood transfusions. We will test the system suitability by comparing the results of our analytical techniques to standards used in the characterization of blood and develop a prototype system that will enable the rapid characterization of large numbers of RBC.