Laboratory of Blood and Blood Products

In the 1950s, the NIH Blood Bank was part of the Laboratory of Blood and Blood Products. At some point in the late 1950s or early 1960s, the blood bank (which was located in the basement of the Clinical Center) was administratively separated out from the Laboratory of Blood and Blood Products and became part of the Clinical Center (Department of Transfusion Medicine).

Blood products can include blood, red blood cells, fresh/frozen plasma, platelets, plasma derivatives, albumen, immune globulins, clotting factor concentrates, things that are made by recombinant DNA technology, reagents that test for infectious disease or are used to type the blood, and even the blood bank software used to keep track of the donations.

The Laboratory of Blood and Blood Products was located in Building 29, first floor. In the late 1960s, they also acquired a few rooms on the fourth floor of Building 29.

When the Division of Biologics Standards (DBS) was administratively transferred to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1972, telephone directories suggest that the lab moved to the second and third floors of Building 29. The name also changed from Laboratory to Division, reflecting the FDA’s organizational structure.

After the administrative transfer of the DBS from the NIH to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1972, Dr. Barker moved from the Laboratory of Virology & Rickettsiology to the Division of Blood and Blood Products where he worked from 1973 to 1978. Dr. Barker researched the Hepatitis B virus and its test and vaccine. Dr. John Finlayson and Madge Crouch also worked in Blood and Blood Products.

During the late 1990s, the Division of Blood and Blood Products no longer appeared in telephone directories. It may have been reorganized under Hematology or the Division of Blood Application.

By 2000, there was both the Division of Blood Application and the Office of Blood Research and Review at the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER).