Development of innovative technologies to advance blood product safety and evaluation of RBC transfusion recovery.  

The Kanias lab shares a big interest in promoting new technologies and methodologies that leverage the safety and quality of blood products. For example, current RBC PVC bags contain a potentially toxic plasticizer, di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), which will be banned in Europe starting in 2030. In collaboration with XHEME Inc. we work on developing PVC and DEHP-free blood bags to eliminate the plasticizer toxicity and replace PVC with environmentally friendly and biodegradable bags. As new RBC blood products often require survival studies in humans, we have optimized an RBC biotinylation protocol (BioRBCs) for quantifying RBC transfusion survival in healthy volunteers in collaboration with Vitalant Innovation Center and with support from NHLBI’s REDS-IVP program.