Blood-freezing breakthrough (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Blood-freezing breakthrough

2:59pm Thursday 4th March 2010 in

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A WINCHESTER firm which is widely recognised for its freeze-drying expertise has won funding for a feasibility study on a technique which could make blood transfusions less reliant on donors.

Biopharma Technology, of Winnall Valley Road, are best known for freeze-drying 500-year-old fragments of Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose.

Now the firm has been awarded a research grant by the Technology Strategy Board to work with scientists at the Department of Biotechnology and Chemical Engineering, University of Cambridge, on how to apply the process to the long-term storage of blood. At the moment, donated blood is refrigerated.

It has to be discarded once it passes its “use-by” date and it can’t be kept in a freezer because that would burst the red cells. But now scientists have developed new materials which make cell membranes permeable so sugar levels can be raised to protect the cells and enable blood to survive the freeze-drying process.

BTL are the freeze-drying experts, applying the process to more than 600 different materials, ranging from drugs, bacteria, liposomes, diagnostic reagents, foods and, perhaps their biggest challenge, timbers from the Mary Rose.

“We have great knowledge in BTL and the Technology Strategy Board award has enabled the company to work with leading scientists in Cambridge and evaluate the potential of an innovative material,” said Dr Kevin Ward, director of research and development.

“If we are successful with red blood cells, which are really fragile, then it opens up the possibility of creating a platform for freeze-drying therapeutic cells, enabling a wider range of products and applications,” he added. BTL will be working with Professor Nigel Slater, at Cambridge University, who said: “The combination of their lyophilisation expertise with our biostabilisation technology presents an ideal opportunity to develop additional formulation and storage protol.