The idea for our project stemmed from a deep concern with the global blood crisis, leading to millions of preventable deaths every year. In 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) published resolution WHA63.12, stating its concerns over the lack of safe blood products for patients in low to middle income countries (LMIC) [1]. Due to the growing concerns surrounding blood supply, blood products were classified as essential medicines (EMs) in 2013 [2]. As an essential medicine, blood should be “available at all times, in adequate amounts and in appropriate dosage forms, with assured quality and affordability.” However as it stands in 2024, blood still fails to meet the availability and safety qualities in over half the world’s countries [3]. Therefore, our team has focused on not only trying to develop solutions to this problem, but to raise awareness and advocate for those affected by the lack of safe blood.
With that being said, UNIglobin is a project founded and shaped by the people we engaged with. Our goal is for our final product to be used by emergency responders in the field, providing access to safe blood wherever it's needed. Through our Human Practices work, we were able to deeply reflect and determine how our project connects to the wider world. Throughout the cycle, we engaged with stakeholders and experts in the field to optimize our experimental design and implementation of hardware components. We held open discussions with bioethicists to discuss how our work would be perceived by the public and possible issues or groups that would be affected. We fostered public engagement with a wide range of individuals in our community to teach them about the importance of blood and how we are using synthetic biology to support the blood supply. We were able to close the loop and affirm that not only does our project have a place in the synthetic biology field, it is a critical and life saving innovation for hundreds of millions worldwide.
[1] World Health Organization (2010). Availability, safety and quality of blood products (WHA63.12). www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHA63.12
[2] World Health Organization (2013). Guidelines on management of blood and blood components as essential medicines, Annex 3, TRS No 1004 /www.who.int/publications/m/item/blood-and-blood-components-as-essential-medicines-annex-3-trs-no-1004
[3] The Lancet Haematology (2024). Blood deserts: a vision to tackle blood inaccessibility. doi: 10.1016/S2352-3026(24)00073-5