SPARE blood leftover from routine sampling is to be retained and used for research as part of a new scheme launched in Glasgow.
The SHARE project, launched at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, is calling on people to sign up to a register which would mean any blood samples they provide to doctors, which would normally be disposed of after use, being retained and used to aid research into diseases such as cancer, diabetes and asthma.
The project seeks to understand more about how these diseases develop in different people and how different people respond to different drugs.
The goal is to advance the science of precision medicine which aims to give the right treatment to the right patient at the right time at the right cost, eliminating more expensive trial-and-error approaches.
Professor Anna Dominiczak, Head of the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow, said: “Every day in Scotland around 7,000 samples of blood are discarded after use. If we could use these samples for research into a range of diseases, we could make precision medicine a reality sooner.
“We will learn more about the relationship between genes and disease, why some people get certain diseases and others don’t and how different genes respond to treatment, as well as improving drug safety.
“Ultimately the SHARE project can help us to find and develop different treatments for patients based on their unique characteristics, and this can be achieved by working together."
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