This year’s event was held in a hybrid format providing attendees with the best of both worlds: a chance for face-to-face discussions for those who could attend in Vancouver, B.C., and the flexibility of a virtual event for participants and attendees across Canada and beyond.

During November’s Honouring Canada’s Lifeline award ceremony, three distinguished Canadian researchers were recognized with Lifetime Achievement Awards. Each a world-leading expert with numerous outstanding achievements during their distinguished careers, Dr. Gilles Delage, Dr. Heather Hume and Dr. Mel Krajden are deserving awardees.

We’re excited to launch a brand-new look for our professional education website, Canadian Blood Services’ resource hub for health-care professionals.

The latest Centre for Innovation annual progress report is now available on blood.ca. It describes the highlights of Canadian Blood Services’ research and education network during the 2020-2021 fiscal year.

The 2021 AABB Virtual Annual Meeting last month was marked by two highlights for Canadian Blood Services: the inauguration of our chief scientist, Dr. Dana Devine, as AABB president, and Dr. Devine’s recognition with a prestigious AABB leadership award.

The 2021-2022 Canadian Blood Services’ Lay Science Writing Competition launched this week! This year’s theme invites trainees to use plain language to tell their “Science behind the scenes” stories.

Several competitive training and funding programs to support graduate fellowships and educational and research projects are open for applications until November 15! Read on to learn more about these opportunities and hear about past recipients.

The transfusion medicine traineeship support administered by Canadian Blood Services was recently renamed to honour Dr. Elianna Saidenberg — an expert in hematopathology and transfusion medicine and an inspirational physician and educator — who passed away in late 2019.

Canadian Blood Services recently published its annual Surveillance Report, a summary of monitoring efforts related to transmissible infection testing in donors; possible transfusion-transmitted infections in recipients; and new, emerging pathogens. Surveillance also includes monitoring of donor safety.

Dr. Andrew Shih recently received funding from the Centre for Innovation to process map the implementation of the CONCOR-1 convalescent plasma trials in British Columbia – work that may inform and improve future clinical trials. Dr. Shih talks to Massimo Cau, a PhD Candidate at the Centre for Blood Research, about his research plans.