Objectives

To provide researchers with an opportunity to conduct studies on a large representative sample of blood donors with linked demographic data and donation test results. Targeted investigations on particular subsets of the donor population are also feasible due to the availability of this linked data.

Background

The Retrovirus Epidemiology Donor Study (REDS) has been conducted since 1989. One of the aims of this study is to establish blood specimen repositories for future testing. The General Leukocyte and Plasma Repository (GLPR) was established under this study.

The GLPR repository has already been used to investigate HHV-8 antibody prevalence in the US blood supply (1) and polymorphisms in chemokine receptor genes (2).

Participants

The GLPR was collected in 1994 and 1995 and consists of aliquots of plasma, and whole blood frozen, with or without DMSO, obtained from 147,915 blood donations.

Design

Specimens for the GLPR repository were collected according to a statistical sampling plan, designed to obtain donations that are representative of all donor racial/ethnic groups. REDS blood centers that have contributed to the GLPR repository include: the American Red Cross (ARC) Greater Chesapeake and Potomac (Baltimore, MD; and Washington, DC), Southeastern Michigan (Detroit, MI), and Southern California (Los Angeles, CA) regions; the Blood Centers of the Pacific (BCP; San Francisco, CA); and the Oklahoma Blood Institute (Oklahoma City, OK).

Donor screening and testing was performed according to standard operating procedures and included tests for anti-HIV (types 1 and 2), anti-HCV, anti-HTLV, HBsAg and anti-HBc; serologic testing for syphilis and testing for ALT levels (3).

Publications

1. 
   

   Pellett PE, et al. (2003) Multicenter comparison of serologic assays and estimation of human herpesvirus 8 seroprevalence among US blood donors. Transfusion 43(9):1260-1268. DOI: 10.1046/j.1537-2995.2003.00490.x

   
   


2. 
   

   Mariani R, et al. (1999) CCR2-64I polymorphism is not associated with altered CCR5 expression or coreceptor function. (Translated from eng) J Virol 73(3):2450-2459. DOI: 10.1128/JVI.73.3.2450-2459.1999

   
   


3. 
   

   Zuck TF, et al. (1995) The Retrovirus Epidemiology Donor Study (REDS): rationale and methods. (Translated from eng) Transfusion 35(11):944-951. DOI: 10.1046/j.1537-2995.1995.351196110900.x

   
   

Additional Details

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