PULSE — Quarterly News for Donors

plasma and blood bags

COVID-19 Convalescent Plasma

January 15, 2021 at 5:42 am
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In the start of April 2020, SBC became one of the first blood centers in the nation to create a COVID-19 convalescent plasma (CCP) program. The program, which encouraged recovered COVID-19 patients to donate antibody-rich plasma for current COVID-19 patients,...


purple top tubes

Purple Top Tubes: Your Impact on Research

January 14, 2021 at 11:51 pm
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By Marino Bozic, Research and Clinical Services Manager When you come in to make a whole blood or apheresis donation at SBC, you may notice the phlebotomists collecting tubes from your donation. One of the tubes you will see drawn...


DNA strand

Next-Generation Sequencing

January 14, 2021 at 11:41 pm
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By Deepti Sharma, PhD, Clinical Laboratory Scientist; Tamara A. Vayntrub, Project Manager; Bing Melody Zhang, MD, MS, FCAP, Assistant Director, HLA Lab  SBC is now using next-generation sequencing (NGS) as the basis for its HLA typing method for both bone...