Press Release - 01.05.07

Transplant Leaders to Improve Safety Testing

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DENVER (Jan. 26, 2004) – A joint task force comprised of representatives from American Association of Tissue Banks, Eye Bank Association of America, Laboratories at Bonfils, LifeNet, Musculoskeletal Tissue Foundation, Regeneration Technologies, Inc. and key executives from the 10 leading in vitro diagnostics manufacturers was formed following a candid, open forum discussion regarding deceased-donor screening test issues during AABB's Annual Meeting last October.

At that time, transplant leaders alerted test manufacturers of current test problems that result in lost donors and suggested solutions. Manufactures agreed to investigate solutions for many of the problems and asked for help from the tissue and cornea banks.

Now, the task force is developing a list of deceased-donor testing parameters which include: suggested sample types, testing windows and confirmatory steps - all of which are needed to improve testing.

Laboratories at Bonfils, based in Denver, will lend its support by providing deceased donor samples to manufacturers for test kit improvements and validations. The deceased-donor sample requirements for vendor test kit validations will be used as a guideline by manufacturers to determine which test validations would be needed for future test development.

Like blood centers, tissue banks and eye banks rely on infectious disease testing of donor specimens to insure the safety of donated blood, corneas and tissue. Eye and tissue banks are negatively impacted when screening tests are reported positive for infectious diseases because that cornea, tissue or organ then becomes unsuitable for transplant. It is especially tragic for donors and donor families when deceased donors are lost due to screening tests that are found to be false positive.

About Laboratories At Bonfils

Laboratories at Bonfils is an ISO 9001:2000 registered laboratory. With more than 25 years of experience as a premier clinical reference laboratory, Laboratories at Bonfils—a subsidiary of Bonfils Blood Center—performs highly complex esoteric assays for clients throughout the United States. For more information, please visit www.labsatbonfils.com.