Plasmatology: a new journey begins — Sage Perspectives Blog

By Alessandro Baliani

This year we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the development of plasmapheresis, a landmark moment in medicine. The procedure was developed by Josep Antoni Grifols-Lucas and was presented at the 4th International Congress of Blood Transfusion in Lisbon, Portugal, in July 1951 with a publication following soon after in the British Medical Journal.

Plasmapheresis is the process in which the liquid part of the blood, or plasma, is separated from the blood cells. Although the process largely remains similar in 2021, the applications for the use of plasma have expanded significantly. Rather than just a transporter of blood cells, plasma is now known to serve significant vital functions across the body making it a key tool in both the research space and for use in the clinic.

Plasma-related research has also come to the forefront during the COVID-19 pandemic as clinical trials have sought to understand whether convalescent plasma (plasma from patients who have recovered from coronavirus) may play some role as a therapeutic agent for patients with COVID-19. However, far prior to the coronavirus pandemic the life-saving potential of plasma therapy has been understood. In the therapeutic space plasma is regularly used as a treatment for alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, immune deficiency diseases, neurological disorders, von Willebrand disease and hemophilia. Plasma is even used in less serious conditions for as a regenerative therapy in dental surgery and has also been used for many years to treat sports-related and other musculoskeletal injuries.

Outside of use as a therapeutic, plasma is increasingly used both as a diagnostic and to help understand diseases. Plasma contains carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids all of which can be used as biological markers that help us diagnose conditions, test the response of treatments and monitor the progression of a disease. The composition of proteins within plasma can help us to better understand the nature of specific complex diseases and is increasingly being used to study diseases such as Alzheimer’s which lack well validated biological markers.

In timing with the 70th anniversary of the discovery of plasmapheresis, SAGE has launched a new title, Plasmatology, the first journal to focus exclusively on all aspects of plasma-based medicine. The main aim of the journal is to gather, in a single source, the most relevant scientific knowledge on human plasma as a fluid whose components circulate through the whole body acting on most vital organs. In this sense, to convey the richness of plasma as a component of the human body with relevance to health and disease through the overarching concept of a unifying, ubiquitous, communicative fluid, is the essence of Plasmatology.

The journal will publish articles open access free of charge due to an educational grant from Grifols, the company whose named is derived from one of the developers of plasmapheresis. Whilst the journal receives a grant from Grifols, it will retain complete editorial independence.

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Article details

Plasmatology: A new journey begins
Alessandro Baliani
First Published MArch 9, 2021, Editorial
DOI: 10.1177/26348535211003691
Plasmatology

About the author

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Alessandro Baliani is a Managing Editor at SAGE Publishing where he is responsible for the direction and day-to-day running of a growing portfolio of clinical peer-reviewed open access titles, covering several therapeutic areas such as hematology, gastroenterology, musculoskeletal disease. He has been directly involved in the launch, rebranding and development of several peer-review titles from the Therapeutic Advances series and, more recently, in the launch of Plasmatology.