An ongoing partnership answers the call of blood donors by providing new clinical research opportunities. After the success of community-focused studies to develop COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, blood donors asked what more they could do as research participants to improve the health of their community.
Through an ongoing collaboration between San Diego Blood Bank and LunaPBC, blood donors are able to support health research along with providing a lifesaving donation.
“When we began collecting convalescent plasma for COVID-19 hospital patients at the height of the pandemic, donors who recovered from the virus came out in droves to donate to help those in their community and beyond,” said Nikhil Nayak, Chief Business Officer for San Diego Blood Bank. “Our blood donors often ask about additional ways they can support our mission, so we are proud to afford them the opportunity to influence the future of personalized medicine through innovative programs like this.”
San Diego Blood Bank is a platform for ensuring the community’s health by connecting its resources and diverse blood donors with research opportunities. Luna was the optimal partner because of its people-centered framework that increases participant engagement and retention, ensures interventions meet the priorities and needs of individuals, and facilitates comprehensive, longitudinal studies.
Read San Diego Blood Bank and LunaPBC Provide Blood Donors an Opportunity to Contribute to Health Research.
“Factors such as genetics, age, gender, and ethnic origin play an important role in the effectiveness of medical treatments, which is why diversity in research participants is incredibly important,” said Nayak.
Dedicated blood donor Jeff Gonka said, “One standard blood donation could save up to three lives, but one small blood sample donated for research could potentially save thousands of lives.”
Do you live in or visit the San Diego area often? Join the San Diego Research Community on Luna today.
About Luna
Luna’s suite of tools and services connects communities with researchers to accelerate health discoveries. With participation from more than 180 countries and communities advancing causes including disease-specific, public health, environmental, and emerging interests, Luna empowers these collectives to gather a wide range of data—health records, lived experience, disease history, genomics, and more—for research.
Luna gives academia and industry everything they need from engagement with study participants to data analysis across multiple modalities using a common data model. The platform is compliant with clinical regulatory requirements and international consumer data privacy laws.
By providing privacy-protected individuals a way to continually engage, Luna transforms the traditional patient-disconnected database into a dynamic, longitudinal discovery environment where researchers, industry, and community leaders can leverage a range of tools to surface insights and trends, study disease natural history and biomarkers, and enroll in clinical studies and trials.