Transfusion Medicine/HLA Section

Overview

The Transfusion Medicine/HLA section at WashU Medicine provides expert clinical laboratory services across apheresis, blood banking, cellular therapy,  histocompatibility, and immunogenetics.

The transfusion service supports patient care at Barnes-Jewish Hospital (BJH) and several other BJC institutions. The BJH Blood Bank supports patients with complex transfusion needs including complicated red blood cell antibody workups, peri-operative support and massive transfusion. The BJH Apheresis service provides both donor and therapeutic apheresis for a variety of patients with differing needs. Therapeutic apheresis procedures provided include exchange procedures (plasma and red blood cell), cytoreduction procedures (platelets, white blood cells and red blood cells), lipid apheresis, and extracorporeal photopheresis. Most donor apheresis procedures collect starting material for cellular therapy products, including one of the largest hematopoietic stem cell transplant programs in the country, which are subsequently processed by the BJH cellular therapy laboratory (CTL). The CTL that processes products for a variety of cell types and indications, including support of dozens of products in clinical study.  The HLA team oversees all clinical testing at the BJH HLA laboratory, supporting the diagnosis of HLA-associated diseases and all transplant programs on campus, including kidney, pancreas, liver, heart, lung, and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Training Opportunities:

The section offers ACGME-accredited fellowship in Transfusion Medicine and Blood Banking, and non-ACGME-accredited fellowship in Histocompatibility and immunogenetics. Trainees benefit from hands-on experience in clinical service, laboratory management, and collaborative research.