Feature Channels: Blood

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A Rutgers-led team of researchers has developed a microchip that can measure stress hormones in real time from a drop of blood.

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The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Research Highlights provides a glimpse into recently published studies in basic, translational and clinical cancer research from MD Anderson experts. Current advances include expanded use of a targeted therapy for a new group of patients with leukemia, molecular studies yielding novel cancer therapeutic targets, insights into radiation therapy resistance and a community intervention to reduce cervical cancer rates.

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Using real-time deformability cytometry, researchers at the Max-Planck-Zentrum für Physik und Medizin in Erlangen were able to show for the first time: Covid-19 significantly changes the size and stiffness of red and white blood cells - sometimes over months.

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Four leading medical specialty societies released a new clinical practice guideline that includes recommendations for reducing blood loss during heart surgery and improving patient outcomes. The document is a multidisciplinary collaboration among The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Society of Cardiovascular Anesthesiologists, American Society of ExtraCorporeal Technology, and Society for the Advancement of Patient Blood Management.

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A gene variant that lowers white blood cell levels and is common in individuals with African ancestry contributes to unnecessary bone marrow biopsies, according to a study published June 28 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

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Patients with a type of blood cancer called multiple myeloma had a widely variable response to COVID-19 vaccines—in some cases, no detectable response—pointing to the need for antibody testing and precautions for these patients after vaccination, according to a study published in Cancer Cell in June.

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After a stroke, doctors can try to remove clots in blood vessels to keep blood flowing freely to the brain. But even though most of these procedures are successful, less than half of people have a successful recovery from the stroke. A new study published in the June 23, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, sheds light on why that may be.

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DALLAS – June 23, 2021 – UT Southwestern will lead a multicenter investigation into why children and young adults experience decreased physical activity and shortness of breath after experiencing blood clots, thanks to a four-year $2.97 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

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Irvine, Calif., June  21, 2021 — A large-scale meta-analysis led by University of California, Irvine researchers provides the strongest evidence yet of which blood pressure medications help slow memory loss in older adults: those that can travel out of blood vessels and directly into the brain. The findings, published in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension, will be of interest to the 91 million Americans whose blood pressure is high enough to warrant medication, as well as the doctors who treat them.

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Activity of the polycomb repressive complex 1 is essential for the development and maintenance of leukemic cells; disrupting it presents a new potential therapeutic approach.

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A large, retrospective, multicenter study involving Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis indicates that convalescent plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients can dramatically improve likelihood of survival among blood cancer patients hospitalized with the virus. The therapy involves transfusing plasma — the pale yellow liquid in blood that is rich in antibodies — from people who have recovered from COVID-19 into patients who have leukemia, lymphoma or other blood cancers and are hospitalized with the viral infection.

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In a new paper published in the journal Circulation, researchers built a model to examine the potential impact of implementing similar blood pressure control programs at barbershops nationwide. Modeled off a 2018 randomized trial called the Los Angeles Barbershop Blood Pressure Study (LABBS), the team found that such programs could reach one in three Black men with uncontrolled blood pressure nationally.

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The treatment’s effectiveness was described in a report describing three Canadian patients who received the AstraZeneca vaccine, and who subsequently developed VITT. Two suffered clotting in their legs and the third had clots blocking arteries and veins inside their brain.

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New research by the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University published in the journal Biomaterials sheds new light on the mechanics and physics of blood clotting through modeling the dynamics at play during a still poorly understood phase of blood clotting called clot contraction. Understanding the physics of this clot contraction could potentially lead to new ways to treat bleeding problems and clotting problems.

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Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have developed a proof-of-concept treatment for blood disorders like sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia that could raise hemoglobin levels by activating production of both fetal and adult hemoglobin. Using a viral vector engineered to reactivate fetal hemoglobin production, suppress mutant hemoglobin, and supply functional adult hemoglobin, the researchers developed an approach that could produce more hemoglobin through a single vector. The results were published in Haematologica.

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Cellphire Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company developing next-generation platelet-based hemostatic therapeutics for application across multiple medical indications, announced today that the first patient has been dosed in the company's Phase 2 dose-ranging study of Thrombosomes®, a platelet-based freeze-dried hemostatic agent, in bleeding patients with thrombocytopenia. The study will evaluate the safety and efficacy of infusing multiple dose levels of Thrombosomes versus standard liquid stored platelets.

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Antibodies aren’t the only immune cells needed to fight off COVID-19 — T cells are equally important and can step up to do the job when antibodies are depleted, suggests a new Penn Medicine study of blood cancer patients with COVID-19 published in Nature Medicine.

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Along with a first-place winner, there are two honorable mentions in the Vasculitis Foundation’s (VFs) 2021 Recognizing Excellence in Diagnostics (V-RED) award program.