Blood services

(cf. Sem van Brummelen, 2017) Every year, approximately four million trauma, oncology, hematology, and obstetric patients, of all ages, in Europe require blood transfusions. Moreover, several millions of immune compromised, clotting factor deficient, and other patients are treated with plasma-derived pharmaceuticals, for which approximately four million kilogram of plasma needs to be collected every year. The supply of these blood products depends on blood banks having access to sufficient healthy and motivated donors.

Sanquin has been established by law as the organization responsible for collection, production, storage and distribution of all blood and related products in the Netherlands. Our research collaboration with Sanquin has focused a.o. on optimizing the blood collection services, and on optimizing the matching of red blood cells to patients. This has led to the following two PhD theses: