In his spare time, while working as a local Australian railway, James Harrison saved millions of lives – with his blood.
Harrison was in particular Special plasmaHe had a rare antibody used by doctors to make a medicine for pregnant mothers with different types of blood from newborns. When this happens, this can attack the immune system of the mother of the red blood cells that are still sophisticated in the fetus.
But it is not as if doctors drew blood once, found these special antibodies, and they could end up to reuse. Harrison had to continue to donate his blood. Almost 1200 times.
He felt horror from needles, and he had to travel for an hour in every direction to the laboratory, and still continued to donate over and over again, every two weeks or so. For 64 years in a row, he died in his sleep in February, after he saved nearly 2.5 million children in Australia.
But the reason that he had to do all this in the first place is that scientists still do not really understand blood.
Nicola TweiliVox Media’s host Stomach Bodcast, wrote an article for New Yorker earlier this year about Blood and scientists try to understand how he does What do you do. In the latest episode of Unsuccessful Podcast, I spoke with the host Nam Hasfield about seeking artificial blood on the latest. Listen to their conversation below, or to feed your favorite PodCast app.
Correction, April 24, 10 am: This story, which was originally published on April 23, erred on the date of the death of James Harrison. It was in February.
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