Contribution | WegoTaipei

Motivation and Purpose

The motivation and purpose behind our Human Practices initiative stem from our desire to broaden the public’s understanding of crucial topics related to blood and its components. We believe that knowledge about the human body, particularly blood, should not be exclusive to experts, but accessible to everyone. To achieve this, we’ve conducted a variety of outreach efforts, including street interviews, online surveys, podcasts, educational sessions with students, and in-depth interviews with professors and medical professionals. Our surveys, both online and in-person, provided valuable insights into the public's knowledge of blood types, Rh factors, and blood donation, revealing gaps in understanding that we aim to address. Through street interviews, we gathered information about the general awareness of the Rh blood system, an often overlooked yet critical component in blood transfusions. We also engaged with experts in immunology, biochemistry, and oncology, whose insights refined our research focus and potential solutions to blood-related challenges, such as Rh-negative blood shortages. Additionally, through podcasts and educational activities, including teaching at the Bread of Life Gospel Center in Beitou, we’ve reached diverse audiences, from children to teachers. Our goal is to ensure that even complex biological topics, such as the components and functions of blood, are presented in ways that are engaging and easy to understand. By offering both public education and expert consultation, we hope to bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and public understanding, ensuring that everyone—regardless of their background—can comprehend the importance of blood in our health and daily lives.

Online survey

Our survey is sophisticatedly designed to efficiently gather the public’s understanding and suggestions of the five key insights: familiarity with blood types, the importance of blood matching, willingness to donate blood, and encouragement for blood donation. To begin, we notice that most participants know their ABO blood type and many have at least heard of the Rh system, including the concept of “panda blood.” However, there is still a notable segment that is unaware of the term or the significance of Rh-negative blood. Subsequently, respondents commonly understand that mismatched blood types can lead to severe reactions, such as allergic reactions, shock, and red blood cell destruction, showing awareness of the critical nature of blood type compatibility in blood transfusions. Moreover, many participants, especially those aware of their Rh-negative status, express willingness to register as blood donors to help others with similar rare blood types. Reasons for reluctance include concerns about health risks, needle hygiene, or existing health conditions. Last but not least, suggestions to increase blood donation include better public education, incentives such as financial rewards, and more accessible donation sites, especially targeting worksites and schools. Some also highlight the need for a societal shift towards seeing donation as a collective responsibility.

Street interview

As part of our Human Practices initiative, we conducted street interviews with a diverse range of individuals, from elders to students, asking, "Have you heard of the Rh blood group system?" This effort was motivated by our desire to raise awareness about the significance of the Rh D blood type in medical procedures, particularly blood transfusions. While the ABO blood system is widely recognized, the Rh blood system is equally essential for ensuring safe transfusions, especially given the global variation in RhD-negative blood. By engaging with a broad audience, we aimed to assess the public's understanding of these complexities and identify knowledge gaps. This feedback is crucial for guiding our outreach efforts, helping us emphasize the importance of universal blood cell generation, and ensuring that critical information about the Rh system reaches diverse patient populations.

Podcast

Blood Hype EP1 | Blood Mysteries Uncovered: The Power of Antibodies In the debut episode, host Melanie, along with Grace and Catherine, delve into the world of antibodies, essential defenders in the body’s immune system. Grace explains how B-cells produce antibodies in response to antigens, the foreign invaders. Antibodies work by marking invaders for destruction and can even help in immunity by sticking around after the threat is gone. Catherine adds to this by explaining the antigen-antibody relationship and the significance of antibodies in treatments like cancer and autoimmune diseases. The episode concludes with fun facts about antibodies, including lab-made monoclonal antibodies. Blood Hype EP2 | Components of Blood: Nature’s Life Force In the second episode, Catherine leads the discussion on blood and its essential components. Melanie outlines blood’s primary roles in transporting oxygen, nutrients, and waste, while Grace breaks down the four main components: red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, and plasma. Red blood cells carry oxygen, white blood cells fight infections, platelets help with clotting, and plasma transports nutrients and hormones. The hosts share interesting facts, such as the length of blood vessels in the human body and how critical each component is in sustaining life. Blood Hype EP3 | Blood Types: More Than Just A, B, O Grace hosts the third episode, focusing on blood types and their importance. Catherine explains the ABO and Rh blood group systems, highlighting how they impact blood transfusions and why O-negative is considered the universal donor. The team discusses cultural beliefs, particularly in Japan, where blood types are thought to influence personality traits. They also emphasize the practical importance of knowing your blood type for medical emergencies, transfusions, and organ transplants. The episode ends with an encouragement to donate blood, especially if you're O-negative, as it’s always in demand.

Interviews

1. Professor Jiang Bo-Lun

Professor Bor-Luen Chiang graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, and is currently serving as the Dean of the College of Life Sciences at National Taiwan University, and a professor at the Institute of Clinical Medicine at National Taiwan University. Having developed a deep interest in the field of immunology from a young age in fourth grade, he has devoted himself to this academia. Dr. Chiang specializes in research on mucosal immunology, cellular immune regulation, and its applications. In our interview with him, we discussed the feasibility of our methodology to change Rh-positive blood into Rh-negative blood. Dr. Chiang pointed out that in order to achieve such a genetic altercation, the focus should not be on erythrocytes themselves, but rather on stem cells, since they contain a nucleus, which is where the DNA resides. His professional insight underscores the flaws and potential of our research and experiment design.

2. Professor Hsu Bing-Ning

Professor Xu Bing-Ning is an attending physician in the Department of Internal Medicine at the National Taiwan University Hospital. He obtained his Ph.D. from Tufts University in the United States. Professor Xu is dedicated to research in the fields of immunology, including apoptosis, T-cell activation signal transduction, immune diseases, and the mechanisms of immune pathogenesis. In this interview, Professor Xu Bing-Lin told us that most blood antigens are composed of carbohydrates. Since attaching carbohydrate antigens to proteins is impossible, inserting specific gene sequences, such as silencers, to stop the continuous production of Rh antigens is not feasible. He also mentioned that scientific research requires long-term, continuous experimentation in order to obtain truly accurate results.

3. Professor Chen Nian-Rong

Professor Chen Nian-Rong is currently a professor and acting director of the Institute of Microbiology and Immunology at National Yang-Ming University. His areas of expertise include immunology, regulation of inflammatory responses, and disease models in transgenic mice, such as autoimmune diseases, intestinal diseases, kidney inflammation, cancer, and more. Professor Chen obtained his Ph.D. from the Institute of Microbiology and Immunology at National Yang-Ming University. After receiving his Ph.D., he went abroad to work as a postdoctoral researcher. In this interview, the professor mentioned that when the wrong blood type is transfused, a hemolytic reaction occurs because of antibodies. So, our original method of combining Rh antibodies with Rh antigens essentially means we are providing this antibody, and since it directly binds to the red blood cells, it leads to an even more severe hemolytic reaction. When asked whether it is possible to develop a universal blood type, the professor mentioned that when the human body detects antigens that do not belong to itself, it uses antibodies to mount an immune response to eliminate them. Additionally, autoimmune reactions are a significant issue that needs to be addressed before creating a universal blood type. Therefore, with current technology, it is very difficult to develop a perfect universal blood type.

4. Associate Professor Huang Guan-Lin

5. Dr. Kang Jun-Min

As a doctor in the National Taiwan University Hospital Department of Pediatrics, Dr. Kang specializes in Pediatric Rheumatology and Laboratory Medicine. Not only is he experienced in coping with immunity-related diseases, but he also plays an important role in the hospital’s laboratory. Our conversation focuses on the current methods to deal with the shortage of Rh-negative blood and other types of blood with certain antigens. Although blood services organizations in Taiwan have ensured a sufficient supply of blood across the country, patients from other places of the world might not be so fortunate. Due to the fact that the techniques available for dealing with transfusion rejections today, patients from less developed countries are often at the risk of experiencing rejections, no matter whether minor or significant. In addition, Dr. Kang believes that our method of dealing with the scarcity of Rh-negative blood is innovative and can possibly be used in different fields of biology that relate to antigens.

6. Professor Liang You-Zhi

Dr. Liang is a professor at the Department of Medical Laboratory Science and Biotechnology of Taipei Medical University. Specializing in oncology, his current research focuses on circular RNA and developing anticancer drugs. He believes that it is in fact possible to develop a universal blood type. In this case, it would be the O and Rh-type since this is the most common combination. However, it would require extensive clinical trials to ensure the A or B antibodies wouldn’t be stimulated after their RBCs are being treated with enzymes that cut carbohydrates. Regarding our plan, he believes that the cost-effectiveness is quite low. Because there are fewer people with Rh-blood in Asia, the shortage of Rh- would not become serious enough for companies to cope with it. In addition to our solution, he believes utilizing Moltech, such as CRISPR tech and RBC amplification, would enhance the feasibility of our proposal.

7. Professor Yu Rong-Chi

Professor Huang Guan-Lin graduated from the Department of Medicine at National Taiwan University and later obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Clinical Medicine at the University of Oxford in the UK. His research expertise is in infection immunology, and he is currently an associate professor at the Institute of Immunology at National Taiwan University’s College of Medicine. Associate Professor Huang's research interests and direction focus on understanding the human adaptive immune response from the perspective of infection immunology, such as antigen-specific B cells, T cells, and antibodies, how to recognize emerging or re-emerging infectious pathogens, analyzing whether these pathogens undergo antigenic evolution, and assessing whether antigenic evolution of pathogens affects the clinical severity of infections or the scale of outbreaks. When we asked whether it is possible to find or create a universal blood type that can be transfused to anyone without causing hemolysis or other fatal reactions, the professor responded that the more important issue today is addressing the immune reactions caused by ABO blood types during transfusions due to antigens. Scientists are working on making A and B blood cells resemble O-type blood cells. Regarding the Rh blood type, Rh-negative is considered a universal blood type, so it's a relatively smaller issue. The professor also acknowledged the feasibility of our team's proposal to solve the shortage of Rh-negative blood using synthetic biology techniques, though it would need approval to have practical value. The professor also mentioned that Rh-positive pregnant women can receive anti-immunoglobulin injections to prevent hemolytic reactions from occurring.Dr. Yu is a professor in the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at National Taiwan University. He is an expert in blood type. Most of his research is based on why people have different blood types, how blood type influences our life, and how we can make use of blood, which is very related to our topic. Dr. Yu believes that the possibility of creating a worldwide blood type that fits everyone is increasing due to modern biotechnology. In the interview, he focuses on two innovative technologies that have recently won the Nobel Prize. First, he talks about the iPSC, which stands for induced pluripotent stem cell. iPSC is a type of pluripotent stem cell that can be generated directly from a somatic cell. Dr. Yu told us that we could use those differentiated stem cells and differentiate them again to create red blood cells. Second, he shared another technology called CRISPR, which research scientists use to selectively modify the DNA of living organisms. He strongly believes that by using these two ideas, our proposal will have a high feasibility.