The Coastal Blood Foundation awarded grants totaling more than $561,000 for blood-related research, educational programs and projects in Northeast Florida.
“We are proud to award these grants to important and innovative projects in our community,” said Jim Sebesta, Coastal Blood Foundation board chairman. “These initiatives are creating programs and research to directly improve the health of our region’s residents.”
Here are the Northeast Florida-based grant recipients:
• OneBlood, $42,766 for research to compare weak Rh (D) typing methods, (serology vs. molecular) for use in emergency/urgent care.
• Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, $60,000 to fund free educational activities for Mayo and other Jacksonville-area hospital staff.
• Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, $100,000 for research on the impact of blood donor age in red blood cell nitrosylation.
• Mayo Clinic Jacksonville and Florida State College at Jacksonville, $23,800 to fund their joint program for select college freshmen, including a four-day laboratory science immersion.
• St. Vincent’s HealthCare Jacksonville, $17,457 for a teaching microbiology microscope for the medical laboratory science program.
• St. Vincent’s HealthCare Jacksonville, $25,000 for scholarships to support for 10 students to pursue blood laboratory careers in Jacksonville.
• UF Health Jacksonville, $6,000 to support transfusion medicine fellow expenses to receive training at the OneBlood Reference Laboratories in St. Petersburg and support expenses for two attendees of the American Association of Blood Banks meeting in San Antonio.
• UF Health Jacksonville, $125,000 to initiate its Jacksonville Benign Hematology Care Program, a multiyear project to lead planning, development, standardization of protocols and procedures and coordination of care for hematology patients with sickle cell anemia and other anemias.
Among other grant recipients was the Maryland-based AABB National Blood Foundation and Beaufort Memorial Hospital in South Carolina.