Oct 2020
Dr Charles Drew, Blood-bank Pioneer
Celebrating inspirational leaders in health and social care #BlackHistoryMonth
Drew was born in 1904 into an African-American middle-class family in Washington, D.C. He graduated from Washington's Dunbar High School in 1922.
Drew won an athletics scholarship to Amherst College in Massachusetts, graduating in 1926. After college, Drew spent two years as a professor of chemistry and biology, to earn the money to pay for medical school.
Drew studied medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where he ranked second in his graduating class and received the standard Doctor of Medicine and Master of Surgery degree in 1933.
He then began postgraduate work, earning his Doctor of Science in Surgery at Columbia University. He spent time doing research and gave a doctoral thesis, "Banked Blood" based on an exhaustive study of blood preservation techniques. He earned a Doctor of Science in Medicine degree in 1940, becoming the first African-American to do so.
Just after earning his doctorate, Drew was recruited to help set up, and administer, an early prototype programme for blood storage and preservation. He collected, tested and transported large quantities of blood plasma for distribution in the UK. Drew went to New York City as the medical director of the United States' Blood for Britain project.
The Blood for Britain project aided British soldiers and civilians through U.S. blood to the United Kingdom.
Drew created a central location for the blood collection process where donors could go to give blood. He made sure all blood plasma was tested before it was shipped out. He ensured that only skilled personnel handled blood plasma to avoid the possibility of contamination. The Blood for Britain programme operated successfully for five months, with almost 15,000 people donating blood amounting to over 5,500 vials of blood plasma.
His work as the director of the first blood bank project in Britain during World War II helped save thousands of lives.
Following this Drew was appointed director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank in February 1941. This blood bank was used by the U.S. Army and Navy. In 1942, Drew resigned from his posts after the armed forces ruled that the blood of African-Americans would be accepted but would have to be stored separately from that of whites.
Drew had a lengthy research and teaching career. In 1939, while studying Drew married Minnie Lenore Robbins, a professor of home economics. They had three daughters and a son. Drew died in 1950 in a car accident.