Willingness of volunteers from Canadian Blood Service's Stem Cell Registry to donate blood, marrow, and other tissues for regenerative therapy

Abstract

BACKGROUND As research surrounding cell‐based regenerative therapy advances toward human trials, greater demand for cell products sourced from healthy donors will arise. The extent to which volunteers in Canadian Blood Services Stem Cell Registry would be willing to donate cells to support regenerative therapy is not known and warrants exploration. METHODS We conducted a Web‐based survey to assess factors that would influence donor willingness to donate various tissues (blood, skin, fat, and bone marrow) for regenerative therapy. The survey was provided to 15,000 randomly selected donors who registered between 2013 and 2018. Data from the 1118 respondents were analyzed. RESULTS Despite a mixed degree of familiarity with regenerative medicine, potential donors were very supportive of donating for direct patient care and for research, and increasing their familiarity by reading a brief paragraph of information on regenerative medicine increased willingness to donate. Canadian Blood Servicesʼ stem cell registrants greatly preferred supporting nonprofit groups in research and development in comparison to entities that represent profit‐seeking industry involvement. The most important factors influencing donor willingness to donate were having an impact on patients, safety of donation, advancing knowledge in regenerative medicine, a manageable time commitment, and tolerable pain that could be managed. Donors were most willing to donate blood and had mixed responses to donating other tissue types. CONCLUSIONS Adult volunteers from a national stem cell registry are willing to support donation of biospecimens for regenerative therapy.

HLA‐haplotype redundancy and rareness in Canadian Blood Services' Stem Cell Registry and Cord Blood Bank: Novel metrics for optimizing utility

“…Importantly, registrants are generally supportive of new uses for blood, marrow, and other tissues, particularly following efforts to increase their awareness of these applications. 5 Another potential opportunity to leverage the use of redundant registrants on the SCR is to use these willing donors for HLA-matched platelet donation. 10 Patients with refractoriness to random donor platelet transfusion often require platelet products that are partially HLAmatched.…”

“…In addition, the anticipated low rate of using rare HLA phenotypes that are redundant may justify the usage of these donors and units, especially if HLA‐matching is not required. Importantly, registrants are generally supportive of new uses for blood, marrow, and other tissues, particularly following efforts to increase their awareness of these applications 5 …”

“…Identifying gaps or redundancy in HLA phenotypes regarding the needs of patients could guide recruitment strategies to increase the likelihoods of finding matched donors for more patients. 5 Here, we examine redundancy and rareness in the Canadian Blood Services (CBS) Stem Cell Registry (SCR) and Cord Blood Bank (CBB) and provide insight on how these metrics can be used to optimize the usage and operations of donor registries.…”

The Hunt Is On! In Pursuit of the Ideal Stem Cell Population for Cartilage Regeneration

“…Whether these donors could provide cells and tissues to support other forms of cellular therapy is intriguing. In a recent survey of registrants on the Stem Cell Registry at Canadian Blood Services, many registrants were willing to donate cells for uses other than blood cell transplants ( Liao et al, 2020 ).…”

A review of whole‐blood donors' willingness, motives, barriers and interventions related to donating another substance of human origin

“…Blood collection agencies (BCAs) worldwide continue to expand their core business and develop partnerships to incorporate supply of donated substances of human origin (SoHO) beyond whole-blood (blood), including stem cells, cord blood, organs/tissues, breast milk and faecal microbiota. [1][2][3] Using BCAs to meet this demand is logistically advantageous. BCAs have the required infrastructure and processes for donor recruitment and screening.…”