Experts Advancing Global Health
Brian S. Custer, Ph.D., MPH
Director, Vitalant Research Institute; Senior Vice President, Research and Scientific Programs, Vitalant; Affiliate Professor, Department of Laboratory Medicine, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).
My research program addresses topics in epidemiology, health policy and health economics of the blood supply and transfusion medicine interventions. I study health outcomes in blood donors and blood recipients, including transfusion-transmissible diseases, other infectious and non-infectious diseases, and the use of transfusion in disease treatment. Currently, I am the principal investigator for two parts of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) funded Recipient Epidemiology and Donor Evaluation Study (REDS-IV-P) project: the San Francisco Bay area hub of the Domestic Program and the Brazil Transfusion Safety Research Program. I am also the principal investigator of the Laboratory and Risk Factor Coordinating Center of the Transfusion-Transmissible Infections Monitoring System (TTIMS) funded by the Food and Drug Administration.
Additional Background
I am actively involved in several committees and working groups of the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies (AABB), including Transfusion Transmitted Diseases (TTD), the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) Transfusion-Transmitted Infectious Diseases Working Party, and am one of the leaders of the ISBT Transfusion Research Young Investigator Training (I TRY IT). Previously, I served on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Blood and Tissue Safety and Availability (ACBTSA).
Current Positions
Chair, ISBT Working Party on Transfusion-Transmitted Infectious Diseases
Committee Member, Transfusion-Transmitted Diseases, AABB
Associate Editor, TRANSFUSION
Links
Education & Training
B.S. in Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
MPH in Epidemiology, University of Washington, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Seattle, Washington
Ph.D. in Health Outcomes Research, University of Washington, Comparative Health Outcomes, Policy, and Economics (CHOICE) Institute, Seattle, Washington