Patients and Healthy Blood Donors
What is the testing?
Lymphocytes are cells in the immune system which help your body fight viruses, bacteria and cancer. Different types, or “subsets”, of lymphocytes have different roles, such as killing infected cells or controlling the immune response.
Cytokines are proteins which the cells of the immune system use to communicate, such as activating resting cells and guiding them towards an infection. If too many cytokines are produced, it can cause conditions like rheumatoid arthritis.
Our testing measures these cells and proteins to help doctors and scientists understand the cause of conditions caused by, or related to, their immune system. We aim to eventually use this testing to help with diagnosis and treatment.
For patients - How to access our services
If you or a family member are interested in accessing our blood testing services, please speak to your doctor. They can contact us by completing an Expression of Interest form (linked here) or emailing us at chm.clinicalphenomics@anu.edu.au .
Healthy Blood Donors
Why we need you
We are trying to identify changes in cells or proteins in people with conditions caused by, or related to, their immune system. To show the changes in cells or proteins are associated with disease, we need to compare them against results from healthy people.
Exclusion criteria
- personal or strong family history of immunological disease
- treatment with immune-modulating drugs
- recent radiotherapy
- organ transplantation
- malignancy
- type 2 diabetes
- pregnant
- Hepatitis C
Additionally, on the day that you are donating blood, you are not eligible if you have had any contagious illness or received any vaccine within 4 weeks.
How to book a blood donation
All blood donations are collected on weekdays at Canberra Hospital, Woden at ACT Pathology. If you would like to participate as a healthy control, either on a single occasion or on an ongoing basis, please return your completed consent form to admin.ccps@anu.edu.au
We will contact you to arrange a date for your blood donation.
Links to healthy control information sheet and consent form