BioIVT has moved its London blood donor centre to Imperial College London’s White City Campus, which is four times larger than its previous facility. BioIVT has seven global blood donor centres and supports the work of about 30,000 researchers worldwide.
“We are responding to a rapidly growing demand from clients in the UK and Europe for fresh biological material, which is an integral component in their cell and gene therapy development and in vitro diagnostics (IVD) research,” said Kelly Sapsford, BioIVT VP, Donor Centre Operations, EU.
BioIVT’s expanded London facility will allow it to continue to supply UK and EU clients with fresh blood, leukopaks and other biofluids within hours of collection. It will also enable the company to provide on-site immune cell isolations, point-of-care testing services, and cryopreservation capabilities.
Leukopaks, which contain concentrated white blood cells, are used to help identify promising new drug candidates, assess toxicity levels, and conduct stem cell and gene therapy research. They are useful for researchers who need to obtain large numbers of leukocytes from a single donor.
BioIVT blood products can be supplied with specific clinical data, such as donor age, ethnicity, gender, BMI, and smoking status. Its leukopaks are also human leukocyte antigen (HLA) and cytomegalovirus typed. HLA typing is used to match patients and donors for bone marrow or cord blood transplants. FC receptors play an important role in antibody-dependent immune responses.
