As their first life-saving technology moves closer to clinical trials, pathologists at the medical schools of East Carolina University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have launched a second collaboration. Now they have begun work on freeze-drying red blood cells.
Platelets are the components of blood that stop bleeding.
Red blood cells collect oxygen from the lungs and deliver it throughout the body. Traumatic bleeding casualties may need red blood cells as well as platelets. Bode and Read began their collaboration in 1989 with a grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research. Their purpose was to find a way to prolong the life of platelets to make them available for use in field hospitals. Fresh platelets last only five days.