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Startup saving lives with drone blood delivery

December 17, 2018

The South Texas Blood & Tissue Center makes thousands of deliveries of blood and blood products every year, serving hospitals and clinics in an area larger than many states.

But in some parts of the world, blood deliveries are more of a struggle because of poor roads and difficult terrain.

That’s where a Bay Area startup called Zipline has found a way to deliver blood using drones.

In 2016, the company signed an agreement with the Rwanda government to deliver critically needed blood and medical supplies to rural areas using the unmanned aircraft.

The contract has been expanded to reach Rwanda’s entire population, the company’s CEO told the WIRED25 summit recently, and plans are in the works with the government of Ghana.

Tissue regeneration researchers awarded two major grants

December 10, 2018

Scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have received two grants to help continue groundbreaking research on tissue regeneration.

Their method injects microbubbles with a bone-inducing gene into damaged tissues. Those areas are then treated with ultrasound waves, which mediates the delivery of the DNA into stem cells. Parts of the DNA become incorporated into the stem cells, activating the patient’s own stem cells to heal the injury.

“This type of gene delivery has the advantage of being targeted and safe, compared to using viral-based gene therapy,” said Scott Jones, vice president of scientific affairs at BioBridge Global. “This type of treatment is also nice because it’s noninvasive and uses the patient’s own cells, plus it doesn’t require growing stem cells outside the body.”

QualTex Laboratories wins top poster award at national conference for the first time

November 30, 2018

QualTex-laboratories-national-conference-1-1

For many attending the recent AABB Annual Meeting in Boston, one word stuck out on a poster presentation from the Quality Assurance team in QualTex Laboratories.

“The title of our abstract jumps out – ‘turnaround’ is a huge deal in our industry,” said Robert Medina, who worked with Emmanuel Casasola and Douglas Armstrong on the study that led to the poster. “That’s one of the indicators that we look at daily. Seeing something different caught people’s attention.”

The poster, which summarized how QualTex Quality Assurance was able to dramatically reduce blood and plasma testing turnaround times, was named the best in its category at the annual convention for the blood collection and testing industry.

Five things you should know about BioBridge Global

November 26, 2018

Five things you should know about BioBridge Global

cGMP is in the DNA of BBG

Breaking down acronyms with the experts who work with them day in and day out

November 19, 2018

Adrienne Mendoza, Vice President of Global Quality and Compliance, helps BioBridge Global and its subsidiaries ensure cGMP (current Good Manufacturing Practices) throughout every process. She answers the basic question – “What is cGMP?” – and then adds some background in a video:

What is cGMP?

cGMP standards specify how to train personnel and qualify equipment, how to document procedures and facilities within our organization and how to carry out critical functions within every process performed at BioBridge Global. The “current” part of cGMP is an important piece because the standards and regulations around manufacturing processes are constantly changing.

GMPs specify what actions must be taken to ensure products, and their manufacturing processes, are designed and controlled to prevent sources of contamination that could lead to impure, ineffective or unsafe products.

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