Researchers find neanderthal blood did not evolve and may have contributed to their demise
Researchers out of France have identified a unique antigen in red blood cells that may have contributed to the downfall of Neanderthals, according to an article in Live Science. These findings will be of interest to clinical laboratorians in hospitals who operate blood banks and blood bankers who do daily testing for blood groups and specific antigens.
“We showed that all Neanderthal shared the same blood group profile,” Mazières told Discover magazine. “Such low diversity is the signal of small populations.” He added, “the study shows how different blood types can help fight against infectious disease,” and that, “it emphasizes the importance of monitoring blood during both transfusions and pregnancies. The presence of some rare subtypes that originated with the Neanderthals but outlived them can lead to complications,” Discover reported.
Clinical laboratories and pathologists will appreciate these new findings, as this unique look into Neanderthal physiology illustrates how the importance of proper blood typing has endured throughout time.
“For any case of inbreeding of a Neanderthal female with a Homo sapiens or Denisova male, there is a high risk of hemolytic disease of the newborn. The condition can lead to jaundice, severe anemia, brain damage and death. This could have contributed to the demise of the Neanderthal population,” Stéphane Mazières, PhD (above), a population geneticist at Aix-Marseille University who led the study into why Neanderthals did not survive, told Live Science. Clinical laboratories that run blood banks and perform blood type testing will find the study results interesting. (Photo copyright: X, formerly Twitter.)
‘Incompatible Blood Type
Mazières’ team studied ancient genomes to further understand the evolution from Neanderthals and Denisovans to Homo Sapiens. Genome sequencing was used to look at blood groups from “dozens of people who lived between 120,000 and 20,000 years ago.” This uncovered “a rare blood group that could have been fatal to their newborns,” Live Science reported.
The rare blood type discovered was not compatible with either Denisovans or early Homo Sapiens. Additionally, the more diverse blood found in Homo Sapiens may have attributed to a more robust immunity, Discover reported.
“Nowadays, certain blood groups confer an advantage against pathogens such as cholera, malaria, one of the gastroenteritis viruses and, as we’ve seen recently, COVID. We can therefore imagine that the blood groups found in the first Sapiens may have equipped them with a new arsenal to face the new environments encountered as they spread across the world,” Mazières told Discover.
“The contribution of this study is twofold. It enlightens the expansion patterns of Homo Sapiens and recalls the anthropological effectiveness of genetic polymorphisms currently being surveyed for transfusion safety and pregnancy monitoring,” the researchers wrote in Scientific Reports.
Knowing a patient’s blood type is key to ensure immune system acceptance of the blood, leading to successful blood transfusions and preventing fatalities. Focus is given to Rh (Resus) factor’s positive and negative typing and on the antigens responsible for segregating A, B, and O blood types. In the case of Neanderthals, a look at red blood cells was key, Live Science noted.
Modern-day Rh incompatibility, which can occur when an Rh-negative woman is pregnant with an Rh positive fetus, can be discovered during pregnancy and treated with prenatal administration of lab-made immunoglobulin to prevent hemolytic disease of the newborn, Live Science reported. It’s a whole system of healthcare that was certainly not available in Neanderthal times.
“Neanderthals have an Rh blood group that is very rare in modern humans. This Rh variant—a type of RhD, another red blood cell antigen—is not compatible with the variants the team found in the Denisovans or the early Homo Sapiens in their study,” Mazières told Live Science.
Looking Ahead
While this research may not change the way blood is handled today, the new findings serve as a reminder of just how important and varied antigens in human blood type can be and how significant the variances impact individuals. It also provides a window into how subtle differences shape the way civilization grows.
The complexity of red blood cells remains an area worthy of continued research, especially since many of these surface and internal antigens are passed down through generations, Live Science noted.
Also, study results may further the decades-long attempt to create artificial blood that has both an extensive shelf life and is accepted by the immune systems of many different patients. However, that will be a daunting challenge. Over the decades, blood bankers and clinical laboratory scientists have watched many attempts to develop artificial blood come close but fail to demonstrate safety while delivering benefits to patients.
More than 312 teams applied for the completion and the prize-winning hand-held device uses clinical laboratory assays to diagnose up to 34 different medical conditions
Star Trek fans among clinical laboratory manager and pathologist will be excited to learn that the winners of the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE were announced earlier this year, five years after the contest began. The purpose of the XPRIZE competition was to challenge teams to create a mobile integrated diagnostic device that weighed less than five pounds and had the ability to monitor health metrics and diagnose 13 specific health conditions. The premise for the contest was inspired by the Star Trek medical tricorder that was first conceptualized on the television show “Star Trek” in the 1960s.
In the popular science-fiction show, the tricorder was a multifunctional hand-held device used for sensor scanning, data analysis, and recording data. The name “tricorder” was an abbreviation for the full name of the gadget, “tri-function recorder,” which referred to the three primary functions of the device.
Based in Culver City, Calif, the XPRIZE Foundation is a non-profit organization that creates and oversees prestigious technological competitions for the purpose of prompting innovations that could benefit humanity.
Handheld Device That Can Perform Multiple Clinical Laboratory Assays
The Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE competition was launched in January 2012. Participants had until August 2013 to register for the contest. The qualifying round was held the following August. Three hundred and twelve teams entered the competition. Qualifiers had until March 2015 to design and build their prototypes. Consumer testing on the products began in September 2016 and the winners were announced in April 2017.
The top prize of $2.6 million was awarded to Final Frontier Medical Devices, the team led by Basil Harris, MD, an emergency room physician with a PhD in Materials Engineering led the team, along with his network engineer brother, George Harris.
Basil Leaf Technologies, founded by Basil Harris, MD, PhD, FACEP (above center); and his brother George, a Network Engineer (second from left), is a medical technology company headquartered in Paoli, Pa. Their winning entry, called DxtER (pronounced Dexter), is a small FDA-approved group of medical devices that enable consumers to diagnose illnesses at home or remotely and share that data with healthcare providers. (Photo copyright: XPRIZE Foundation.)
The collection of FDA-approved devices that make up the “tricorder” includes sensors designed to gather data about vital signs, body chemistry, and biological functions. The DxtER device walks patients through the self-diagnosis of 34 medical conditions. The instruments include:
· A compact spirometer that calculates lung strength;
DxtER communicates with a tablet and/or smartphone-based app. Since the components are FDA-approved, diagnostic test results can be taken directly to healthcare professionals.
“You can [receive the] results and take them to the ER or to your physician or whoever’s helping you, and they can build off those results,” George Harris explained in an Engadget article. “They don’t have to start back at square one. They can jump off at that point and move on with their healthcare.”
Basil Leaf Technologies’ DxtER “tricorder” (above) enables the user to self-diagnose up to 34 medical conditions. Each individual component is FDA-approved, so hospital physicians can rely on the accuracy of the test results. (Photo copyright: XPRIZE Foundation.)
According to the contest website, “at the heart of DxtER is an artificially intelligent engine that learned to diagnose by integrating years of experience in clinical emergency medicine with data analysis from actual patients having a variety of medical conditions and outcomes.”
“It is very exciting that our vision of mobile, personalized patient-centric healthcare is getting closer to becoming a reality thanks to the great work of the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE teams,” declared Paul E. Jacobs, PhD, Executive Chairman of Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM) in an XPRIZE press release. “Creating technology breakthroughs in an industry as complex as healthcare is quite a milestone, and what these teams accomplished is a great stepping stone to making mobile healthcare a viable option across the world.”
DxtER Functions Like a Mobile Medical Laboratory
In addition to the $2.6-million prize, Qualcomm Foundation is giving the Basil Leaf team $3.8 million to further develop the device. This amount includes a:
· $2.5 million proposal grant to the University of California San Diego; and a
· $1.6-million gift from the Roddenberry Foundation to adapt the tricorder for hospital use in the developing world.
The XPRIZE competition required contestants to create a tricorder device that could accurately diagnose 13 health conditions. This included 10 core conditions and a choice of three elective health conditions. The devices also needed to be able to acquire five real-time vital signs:
1. Blood pressure;
2. Heart rate;
3. Oxygen saturation;
4. Respiratory rate; and
5. Temperature.
The 10 core conditions the devices had to be able to identify were:
It is notable that the TriCorder XPRIZE—with its $2.6 million prize—generated entries from 312 teams. Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers can take this high number of entrants as a sign that the ongoing advances in technology are poised to support a new generation of very small medical lab testing devices. Thus, miniaturized diagnostic technologies, when combined with more sophisticated computing chips and software are making it simpler and more feasible to pack multiple diagnostic instruments into a hand-held package.
Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers may want to learn more about the UCheck mobile app developed by Biosense Technologies
Developers of a new iPhone application claim their app can analyze a urine specimen for up to 25 different diseases. This mobile app is a deliberate attempt to give consumers the ability to perform diagnostic tests that would normally be run in a full-scale clinical laboratory.
Findings may lead clinical pathology laboratories to update phlebotomy guidelines
What is the proper quantity of blood to draw from a patient for medical laboratory testing purposes? That question has been debated regularly for decades by pathologists and clinical laboratory scientists. Now a recent study shows a connection between blood draw practices and hospital-acquired anemia in patients with acute myocardial infarction.
The findings of this study serve as evidence that the quantity of blood drawn from hospital inpatients during phlebotomy procedures can potentially have a negative affect, at least for patients with certain health conditions. This study also shows how more detailed research can produce findings that lead to a change in clinical laboratory testing practices.
