José A. López, MD, Executive Vice President for Research, leads the Blood Center’s scientific research efforts into the future.

The Blood Center has been involved in research since its founding 65 years ago. Not only has this work led to seminal advances in the fields of transfusion medicine, bleeding and blood cell formation, the academic focus that it engenders has attracted some of the best minds in transfusion medicine and hematology to the Blood Center. Western Washington has benefited as a result, from both the scientific advances and the high level of expertise in transfusion medicine.

Blood clot prevention and treatment reduces the risk of stroke, heart attack and pulmonary embolism.

Early work focused on the basic biochemistry of blood cells and plasma proteins so that techniques could be developed for their storage. This work enabled new treatments for a variety of patients, including those requiring bone marrow transplantation, which could now be performed because platelets were available for transfusion to prevent the bleeding complications that would otherwise be fatal. The work also improved the treatment of patients with hemophilia, whose blood does not clot, because the clotting factors lacking in their blood could now be replaced by purified factors. Both of these clinical problems led to much research to determine why blood does not clot in these situations, and attracted many scientist and clinicians expert in blood clotting.

The skills of these blood clotting experts can now be applied to an even larger and more global medical problem, that of thrombosis, the clotting of blood where and when it shouldn’t. The clinical manifestations of thrombosis include heart attacks, strokes and leg clots. Blood clots, by stopping blood flow to vital organs, are the leading cause of death in the world.

Part of this effort in thrombosis will focus on capitalizing on the extensive expertise already present at the Blood Center in the mechanisms of blood clotting. In addition, talented investigators with skills complementary to those of scientists already here, will also be recruited to join in these efforts which will culminate in the establishment of a Center for Thrombosis Research as part of the Blood Center’s research institute. Leads have already been uncovered identifying changes in plasma protein structure and platelet activation pathways that could allow development of tests to predict clotting risk and that may produce useful therapeutic interventions. The pace of discovery is accelerating, bringing closer the day when the great threat of stroke and heart attack is but a distant memory.