The Fourth Decade

1994-2003

During NYBC’s fourth decade, the United States both enjoyed economic prosperity and mourned the tragedy of the 9-11 terrorist attack. NYBC further expanded services especially in the area of the National Cord Blood Program where our scientists shared clinical experiences and outcomes of transplant patients.

  • 1995
    • Restructuring of Melville Biologics, formerly a division of NYBC, into a separate for-profit subsidiary which becomes publicly traded company in 1977 called V.I.Technologies (VITEX).

    • NYBC’s Placental Cord Blood Program (now known as the National Cord Blood Program) surpasses the 6,000 unit milestone of cord blood units collected & stored.

  • 1996
    • Revenues surpass the $200 million dollar level with close to $50 million coming from Testing and Special Services and $25 million from royalties and contributions.
    • NYBC files with FDA for clinical trials for the Placental Cord Blood Program, which has shown success in over 200 unrelated gravely ill patients.
  • 1997
    • Blood Services holds over 6,000 blood drives to meet the blood needs of our region.
    • Hematopoietic Stem Cell Laboratory processes over 900 units of stem cells.
  • 1998
    • Robert L. Jones, MD becomes New York Blood Center’s 3rd President and outlines a comprehensive strategic plan to examine, re-shape and implement a decentralized blood services organization to improve our effectiveness as a community blood service.
    • Laboratory of Parasitology, under Sara Lustigman, PhD, makes important progress at identifying an agent to prevent one of the most common malaria-causing parasites from binding to red cells.
    • Dr. Pablo Rubinstein and colleagues publish a landmark paper in the New England Journal of Medicine documenting the world’s largest clinical experience of outcomes among patients using placental cord blood for stem cells as compared to bone marrow.
  • 2000
    • Local blood donations increase 10% over the previous year.
    • NYBC expands transfusion services provided to Westchester Medical Center to include NYBC staff and management at Nyack Hospital.
    • Yankee High School Blood Donor Championship brings in more than 30,000 blood donations increasing the cumulative contribution level to over 200,000 since 1996.
    • Fibrinogen research is a leading focus of research at NYBC’s Linsley F. Kimball Research Institute and helped heart disease research
  • 2001
    • The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center brings out thousands of donors and volunteers at this time of great sadness for our country.
    • Brooklyn/Staten Island Blood Services increases donation by 28% over the previous year. This new blood services division of NYBC started in 1999.
    • Long Island Blood Services division program aimed at prospective jurors yields 3,000 donations in its first year.
    • New Jersey Blood Services division brings platelet collections to mobile units.
    • NYBC collaborates with the Academic Medicine Development Corporation (AMDeC) in the New York Cancer Project, a 20 year study to learn how various factors affect a person’s chance of developing cancer.
  • 2002
    • Free genetic screening for hereditary hemochromatosis (excess iron) piloted in our Long Island Blood Services division.
    • Special Donor Services passes the 175,000 mark with people enrolled in the National Donor Marrow Program.
    • Complement Biology Research Program receives a grant from NIH and the American Heart Association to study the immune response that seeks to destroy mismatched transfused blood.
    • NYBC’s Euroblood Program ends due to FDA concern of Mad Cow Disease.
  • 2003
    • Total Collections of 644,239 units with 115,963 from other US blood sources and 39,768 from Euroblood.
    • The National Marrow Donor Program at NYBC celebrates the 500th stem cell donation.
    • NYBC’s Transfusion Medicine program continues with an international training program for transfusion safety sponsored by SUNY at Brooklyn and the Fogarty Foundation of NIH.
    • The Laboratory of Biochemical Virology continues efforts to develop a topical microbicide for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases as Phase I human clinical trials get underway.
    • NYBC licenses research of Dr. Shibo Jiang of the Laboratory of Viral Immunology to Trimeris, Inc as an anti-HIV drug targeting HIV fusion proteins.
  • 1994
    • Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology established to investigate stem cell function at cellular and molecular levels.
    • Researchers in the Laboratory of Virology and Parasitology achieve a breakthrough in hepatitis C research, visualizing the naked virus.
  • 1999
    • Total Blood Collected is 633,644 units with 200,877 units coming from Euroblood.
    • NYBC scientists have identified over ⅓ of the currently known (over 450) blood group antigens.