Abstract
The National Blood Foundation (NBF) support was critical in the author's research career development. The NBF support came in the form of a start-up seed grant that she got from the American Association of Blood Banks, an organization that advances the practice and standards of transfusion medicine and cellular therapies and an organization in which she is a proud member. The NBF grant enabled her to keep up with her transfusion medicine practice while pursuing her passion to be a physician scientist. During its funding period, she was able to obtain critical preliminary bench data and to secure several National Institutes of Health grants with over a million dollars direct cost. In addition, the knowledge gained from the NBF-supported projects is currently being translated into medical practice in her lab by testing on cord blood expansion. She is looking forward to spending the upcoming years of her professional career bridging bedside observations on transfusion medicine with bench experiences and then utilizing that bench-derived knowledge in the practice of transfusion medicine.