The future of research & education at Canadian Blood Services: Welcoming our new chief science officer

Canadian Blood Services’ innovation and portfolio management (I&PM) team supports research and education initiatives for the Canadian blood system. 

In October 2025, Dr. James (Jim) Zimring joined Canadian Blood Services’ I&PM team as our chief science officer. In this role, Dr. Zimring will provide leadership for the teams of discovery, development, donation policy and studies, and medical microbiology researchers and staff whose efforts support our vision to help every patient, match every need and serve every Canadian. An established scientist himself, Dr. Zimring also continues to undertake discovery research in his lab located at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver.

To wrap the 2025 year, we shared a copy of the I&PM Impact Report 2024—2025, an annual publication that showcases stories from across our research and education network. We asked Dr. Zimring to share a few reflections on what the report has helped him learn about Canadian Blood Services and what that tells us about the year(s) ahead. 

1. “People spotlights” were a new addition to the impact report this year. Now that you’ve joined our network, if you were featured in one, what main points would you want it to share?

    

   Dr. Zimring:  My work focuses on two major areas. The first is strategies to overcome the barriers to treatment that occur when a patient’s immune system becomes sensitized to donor blood that limits, or in extreme cases prevents ongoing transfusion therapy. This matters a great deal to anyone who requires ongoing transfusion support since it limits the ability of transfusions to help treat disease and save lives. 

    

   The second focus area of my research is understanding how blood handles certain kinds of chemical stress (oxidative stress) in health and disease. This is most directly relevant to blood storage, which is central to transfusion, but also generally relevant to a wide range of diseases. 

    

   Canadian Blood Services’ range of investigators and connection to the patients it serves, across Canada, is a rich source of collaboration and advancement that I am honored and excited to join.  It really is amazing! 

    

2. What have you learned about our research and education activities after reading our annual I&PM impact report and settling into your new CSO role?  

    

   Dr. Zimring: It is difficult to underestimate the depth and breadth of research and innovation taking place at Canadian Blood Services, both internally, and in collaboration with our numerous partners and colleagues. The challenges facing our field are many, including traditional vital activities (e.g., keeping the blood supply safe and available), mitigating barriers to treatment (e.g., immune responses), and remaining on the cutting edge of new therapies (e.g., novel cell therapies and molecular medicines).  Our research capacity with regards to surveillance of new infectious pathogens, novel immunotherapies, and advances in cell therapies check all of these boxes.  

    

   It is clear in looking over the range of innovative work being done that Canadian Blood Services has been, and will continue to be, a leader in the field. There are so many exciting things going on in real-time and we should all stay tuned for advances in the near future.

    

3. What big trends and needs are facing our research and education network in the coming years? 

    

   Dr. Zimring: Given the range of contributions that Canadian Blood Services makes it is not possible to emphasize them all in a short blog post, so I don’t mean to exclude anything. That said, I think the work we are doing to advance blood genomics and personalized/precision is taking transfusion to an entirely new level.

    

   This extends not only to traditional blood components (red blood cells, platelets, plasma, and plasma products) but also to the rapid and ongoing advances in cellular therapies, diagnostics, and molecular medicine. I anticipate Canadian Blood Services leading the field in both implementation of existing technologies and discovery of novel technologies in this general theme.

    

4. What are you most excited to continue to learn more about as you join the network in this CSO role? 

    

   Dr. Zimring: Being a physician-scientist is all about learning. Learning what we can from nature, learning what we can from colleagues, learning what we can from students, learning what we can from patients, and learning new sources of learning. For many years I have been well aware of the excellent research going on at Canadian Blood Services, as everyone in the field recognizes. However, seeing the academic output of an organization is quite distinct from learning the richness of its inner workings. 

    

   It is the honor of my career to join Canadian Blood Services and I am having the time of my life learning all of the details of the amazing people and talent that are here, across the organization, and across Canada. Basically, I am like a kid who just walked into an amazing candy store and is overwhelmed at all the variety.

Thank you, Dr. Zimring, for sharing your reflections on the work we do at Canadian Blood Services to support research and education. Welcome to our team!

To continue learning about research and education activities undertaken at Canadian Blood Services, including our competitive funding programs, products and services for researchers, and research team, visit our webpages on blood.ca: Research - Canadian Blood Service

Canadian Blood Services – Driving world-class innovation 

Through discovery, development and applied research, Canadian Blood Services drives world-class innovation in blood transfusion, cellular therapy and transplantation—bringing clarity and insight to an increasingly complex healthcare future. Our dedicated research team and extended network of partners engage in exploratory and applied research to create new knowledge, inform and enhance best practices, contribute to the development of new services and technologies, and build capacity through training and collaboration. Find out more about our research impact.  

The opinions reflected in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Canadian Blood Services nor do they reflect the views of Health Canada or any other funding agency.