Summary
James Harrison, an Australian blood donor known as the “man with the golden arm,” has died at 88.
His rare antibody helped create the anti-D medication, preventing a fatal blood disorder in unborn babies.
Over 60 years, he donated blood and plasma 1,173 times, contributing to over 3 million doses of anti-D given to 2 million mothers.
Honored with the Medal of the Order of Australia, Harrison leaves behind a lasting medical legacy. Researchers are now working to develop a lab-grown version of the life-saving antibody.
There are some things that are really hard to make synthetically. There’s an endotoxin test using horseshoe crab blood, which for a long time has not been replaced by any other way of testing. I think it was an issue during the pandemic because supply of that blood was not consistent anymore or something like that, I might remember that part wrong though.
You’d make a lot of money if you could make a test as good as this but cheap.