Background and objectives
Commercial blood bags are predominantly made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plasticized with di(2‐ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP). DEHP is favourable for storage of red blood cells (RBC). Historically, removal of DEHP from blood bags has been linked to unacceptable haemolysis levels. Oncoming regulatory restrictions for DEHP due to toxicity concerns increase the urgency to replace DEHP without compromising RBC quality. Di(2‐ethylhexyl) terephthalate (DEHT) is one suggested substitute. The aim of this study was to compare PVC‐DEHT to PVC‐DEHP blood bags using additive solutions saline–adenine–glucose–mannitol (SAGM) and phosphate–adenine–glucose–guanosine–saline–mannitol (PAGGSM), to determine whether DEHT can maintain acceptable component quality.
Materials and methods
RBC concentrates (N = 64), platelet concentrates (N = 16) and fresh frozen plasma (N = 32) were produced from whole blood collected into either DEHT or DEHP plasticized systems. Using a pool‐and‐split study design, pairs of identical RBC content were created within each plasticizer arm and assigned either SAGM or PAGGSM. Storage effects were assessed weekly for 49 days (RBC), 7 days (platelets) and before/after freezing (plasma).
Results
Though haemolysis was slightly higher in DEHT, all study arms remained below half of the European limit 0·8%. K+ was lower in DEHT than in DEHP independent of additive solution. The metabolic parameters were not influenced by choice of plasticizer. Platelet activation/metabolism and plasma content were similarly preserved.
Conclusion
Our study demonstrates that the plasticizer DEHT provides adequate blood component quality. We propose DEHT as a strong future candidate for replacement of DEHP in blood bags.
Besides commercialization, university knowledge is commonly transferred through different interactions constituting the so called academic engagement. Very little attention has been paid to professionalizing these various interactions compared to the linear commercialization funnel. In this paper, we conducted a qualitative case study of the innovation support organization at Uppsala University, Sweden, analysing the following: Which mechanisms and tools the university management does apply in order to create targeted open innovation interactions and which effects and challenges emerge when applying these tools? We found that staff with experience of both academia and industry is important for enabling open innovation interactions to evolve and that tools can be used to concretize specific and deeper interactions. However, six challenges was also identified: (1) the intermittent nature of university-industry interactions; (2) lack of codified ways to trace effects; (3) extensive and time consuming preparatory work; (4) the extra resources and low conversion rates in engaging academically unrelated small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); (5) high costs of recruiting staff with double competence and running the studied tools; and (6) the interdependencies which makes the system sensitive. Our results indicate that the tools used help the university to follow a mode 3 of knowledge creation. The study addressed the research gap regarding organizational support in academic engagement by indicating which tools can be used by the university management to target and focus industryacademia interactions, their effects and associated challenges. A lot of the effects still need to be codified, and more research is needed to understand their impact over time.
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