You may be familiar with Mississippi Blood Services, familiar with the essential services provided, with the professional and precision performance in providing them. Or you may not be. Let's try to remedy that.
MBS renders immediate response to emergencies such as Katrina, the Hattiesburg and Oklahoma City tornadoes, the Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico hurricanes and to victims of the Boston and Las Vegas massacres as well as to everyday demands. MBS provides "banked" blood components from its own shelves or from its network, and by "right now" appeals to cover short supply. And to provide it as a safe product in adequate amounts. A constantly dwindling supply which forever seems to lag demand.
Founded in 1979, MBS steadily provides blood components for patients in 49 hospitals throughout Mississippi. The facility is licensed by the FDA and accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks. There are nine donor centers with distribution hubs in Jackson, Oxford and Greenville.
Blood should be recognized and appreciated for the indispensable and unique companion which it is. After a donation it is sorted into groups: A, B, AB or O (call them "personalities" of red cells) and further by an "Rh factor" giving us A+, A-, etc. Thus "blood matching" from donor to donee for a transfusion is necessary. Freezing can extend the storage time for these components for a while, but short shelf life is further shortened by the need to screen every donation for disease. Fresh donations are critical.
Whole blood is not often transfused. It is separated into red cells, platelets and plasma for transfusing as required by the injury or disease of the donee. White cells, which are difficult to collect and could be toxic to a donee, are rarely transfused. My initiative for writing this essay is the respect and gratitude I owe to MBS for providing the red cells and platelets I needed, "right now", for two transfusions during heart surgery.
MBS has recently stepped beyond hematology into oncology for a response to victims of prostate cancer. A blood sample from the patient is processed and sent to a laboratory holding the rights for further processing into a product called Provenge. Then returned to MBS for reinfusion into the patient to promote an immunotherapy for likely prolonging his life by several months or even years.
It is now largely accepted that many diseases have genetic origins. Genes, the units of heredity, also regulate the growth of cells, but can mutate harmfully by letting a cell grow out of control, and to affect surrounding cells in the same way. A phenomenon we call cancer, a malignant tumor which can send metastatic cells elsewhere via the blood stream to spawn new tumors.
If and when the first such malicious "met" begins its lethal blood borne journey could be spotted and stopped, we would then indeed have early detection of cancer. Otherwise, in my view (and from my own experience), we are too late, destined to pursue it in a frustrating chase of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. The victim always suffers even though remission is sometimes achieved. But remission is subject to recurrence so is not a cure.
It just may be that blood can one day inform us of cancer's beginning. That blood could be carrying a message, which we cannot quite yet perceive. A clue which could define action steps toward effective immunotherapy. That is, "teaching" the immune system, without the devastating and too-late experiences of surgery etc, to destroy that first met, or even that first mutant gene.
Such "gene editing" techniques are already the subject of promising research. In fact, there is an encouraging trial where immune cells are being genetically engineered in a process similar to the Provenge one to cure lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common childhood cancer. Both treatments are personalized, precision and targeted to each individual patient. And there is current research in play, with trials planned, to likewise target lung and brain cancers.
But while the Provenge process is pricey (neither Medicare nor the insurance companies will cover it unless metastasis is well under way) the leukemia one is stunningly expensive. So I'd like to see an acceleration of both private and public resources directed to foster and support the productive, healing programs of blood research and treatment, and to the collection and distribution networks where MBS is prominently positioned to participate.
