Winchester firm in blood-freezing breakthrough (From Daily Echo)

Winchester firm in blood-freezing breakthrough

4:41pm Thursday 4th March 2010 in

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A WINCHESTER firm recognised for its freeze-drying expertise has won funding for a study on a technique which could make blood transfusions less reliant on donors.

Biopharma Technology Limited (BTL), of Winnall Valley Road, are best known for freeze-drying 500-year-old fragments of Henry VIII’s flagship, the Mary Rose.

Now the firm has been awarded a research grant by the Technology Strategy Board to work with scientists at the Department of Biotechnology and Chemical Engineering, University of Cambridge, on how to apply the process to the storage of blood. At the moment, donated blood is refrigerated.

It has to be discarded once it passes its “use-by” date and it can’t be kept in a freezer because that would burst the red cells. But now scientists have developed new materials which make cell membranes permeable so sugar levels can be raised to protect the cells and enable blood to survive the freeze-drying process.

BTL are the freeze-drying experts, applying the process to more than 600 different materials, ranging from drugs, bacteria, liposomes, diagnostic reagents, foods and timbers from the Mary Rose.

“The Technology Strategy Board award has enabled the company to work with leading scientists in Cambridge and evaluate the potential of an innovative material,” said Dr Kevin Ward, director of research and development.

“It opens up the possibility of a platform for freeze-drying therapeutic cells, enabling a wider range of applications,”

he added.