Most people know about blood group ABO, with its positives and negatives, but they aren’t the only types. Now, scientists from the University of Bristol and NHS Blood & Transplant have discovered a rare new blood group system, and in the process solved two 30-year-old cases of hemolytic disease on the fetus and newborn.
Your blood type is determined by the presence or absence of proteins known as blood groups that are present on the surface of red blood cells. When a person needs a transfusion, a mismatch of blood types can cause alloimmunization, or the generation of antibodies against the foreign blood group.
Researchers from Bristol’s School of Biochemstry and NHSBT’s International Blood Group Reference Laboratory recently led a study to investigate a 30-year mystery “surrounding the basis of three known, but genetically uncharacterised, antigens that did not fit into any known blood group system,” the university said in a press release.
