The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) announced new funding to support patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) across a range of health conditions experienced by Americans, along with projects designed to help bring practice-changing CER results into real-world care settings.

In a major advance for trauma medicine, researchers at Case Western Reserve University, the University of Pittsburgh and Haima Therapeutics have demonstrated that synthetic platelets can be freeze-dried and remain stable and effective for at least a year at room temperature and at least two months at high temperatures. This unlocks the potential for administering synthetic platelets on a battlefield or on site at a car accident or mass casualty event, which may save more lives.

Oxygen transport, a vital process for sustaining life, is carried out by red blood cells that deliver oxygen to tissues through microscopic capillary networks. Now, researchers from Kyushu University and Institute of Science Tokyo have developed a computational model that simulates this process by combining blood flow, chemical reactions, and oxygen consumption within one system. These simulations reveal that RBCs can adjust the amount of oxygen released based on surrounding oxygen levels, thereby maintaining a stable oxygen concentration across tissues.