Friday, March 26, 2021
A startup company founded by a Waterloo Engineering alumnus is developing technology to manufacture red blood cells needed for everything from trauma response to cancer care.
Shane Kilpatrick (MASc ’17, MBET ’18) hit on the basic idea while working on unrelated research in an oil patch and came to Waterloo to help learn how to bring it to life.
He is now CEO of Membio, which is working to make enough blood to end reliance on donations for medical transfusions.
“Researchers have been manufacturing blood in the lab for the last few decades,” Kilpatrick said. “But they haven’t been able to produce blood cost-effectively and at the scale that’s needed to offset the need for donations.”
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