Stanford center adds research and testing to its mission

By Carolyn Snyder, Special to the Town Crier

Platelets are rocking and rolling at room temperature. Red blood cells are cool, man. And plasma has chilled out.

We’re at the new flagship building of the Stanford Blood Center, where these precious commodities are treated with utmost care - along with the donors themselves.

Indeed, the proper care of blood platelets entails keeping them moving so they remain separated. And red blood cells need refrigeration, while plasma may be frozen. As for the donors, they can relax in cozy recliners and watch a DVD while giving blood.

The blood center, at 3373 Hillview Ave. off Foothill Expressway and Page Mill Road, held its grand opening earlier this month. The 50,000-square-foot facility is much more than a blood bank.

“The Stanford Blood Center of 2005 is a very different entity than the blood center of 1978,” said Dr. Edgar Engleman, blood center director. “What was then a small organization with a rather narrow mission that consisted of drawing blood from healthy clients between the hours of 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday has become a seven-day-per-week health- care provider as well as a center for public health awareness, clinical laboratory testing, fundamental research and last, but not least, blood product procurement.”

The blood center was created in the Stanford School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology in 1978 to meet the transfusion needs of Stanford Hospital and Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital and to do research in immunology, virology and transfusion medicine.

Because of the close working relationships between the research and clinical personnel at the blood center, there have been significant breakthroughs in transfusion medicine, particularly in the areas of compatibility and blood safety according to Engleman.

“We have a zero-tolerance policy about donor blood safety,” said blood center administrator Vince Yalon. Donated blood is put through a strict testing and manufacturing process before leaving the center to ensure blood quality for patients. Laboratory sections of the new center are designed to meet the same standards as pharmaceutical laboratories.

The blood center pioneered the testing of blood for evidence of HIV-AIDS infection. “Remarkably, this test was introduced before the HIV virus was discovered,” said Dr. Stephen J. Galli, chairman of the Medical School’s Department of Pathology. “Many lives were saved by Ed Engleman’s foresight in introducing this simple screening test at the Stanford Blood Center.”

The innovative research that resulted in the screening test continues at the blood center today, according to Galli, with research programs into transfusion-transmitted viral diseases, the development of vaccines for certain cancers and the development of improved methods for increasing the precision of “tissue typing” and therefore the success of kidney and bone marrow transplants.

“Stanford’s kidney transplant program has led the nation in one-year-out transplant survival for the last three years, due in part to the role the blood center’s tissue-typing lab plays in the program,” Yalon said.

Yalon, Galli and Engleman spoke at the center’s grand opening, along with Meghan Daily, who overcame a life-threatening disease thanks to 987 units of blood she received.

Guests were treated to tours of the new digs, described as “plush and much needed” by Michele Hyndman, the center’s public relations director. They saw how blood is processed before being shipped.

In the bright and airy donation room, Hyndman pointed out the cushy automatic reclining chairs that position donors just right. Overhead is an architecturally interesting ceiling that seems to undulate. For whole blood donors, the process typically takes 15 minutes - not much time to appreciate the surroundings. But for automated blood collection, in which donors give only certain portions of their blood, about an hour is required. They can watch DVDs to pass the time.

After the process is complete, donors can enjoy fruit juices, espresso and snacks at the canteen a few feet away.

“The new chairs are the best part of this place,” remarked Ruth Lunsford, an automated blood collection donor who gave blood recently. Lunsford said that the Mountain View center is closer to her home, but she drives to the new center every three weeks because she prefers its new donor chairs and open feel.

The blood center moved to the Hillview Avenue location because its blood banking functions outgrew its Welch Road site, and space was needed for research labs and a burgeoning staff.

Consider, for example, that the center provides approximately 70,000 blood products and another 30,000 manipulations - antibody testing and blood irradiation, among others - to the Stanford and Packard hospitals. According to Yalon, another 10,000 products are provided to El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, 8,000 to the Palo Alto Veterans Administration and 8,000 to O’Connor Hospital in San Jose. “We are the primary supplier to each of these facilities,” he said.

All that blood needs to come from somewhere and that’s why there are frequent and urgent appeals for donors, especially during the holidays when people are busy, and during January and February, flu and cold season months. Donors must be in good health without cold or flu symptoms.

As a thank you during these slow months, the center will give donors 12-month calendars with colorful artwork by patients in the Healing HeARTs program at Lucile Packard. “We also hope these calendars will serve as a reminder to come back,” Hyndman said.

Speaking of hearts, the center has a new logo that combines a heart with two drops that look like hands holding the heart. The new design is intended to convey a sense of caring.

“Altogether, the shape could be a flower or a hug,” according to the center’s Web site. “It communicates warmth and community.” And like a flower, the blood center continues to grow.