Every day in hospitals all over the world, patients receive life-saving blood transfusions from blood donors. Without the ability to test and classify blood by different blood types, those transfusion reactions would often lead to dangerous immune responses, killing more patients than they would save!
How Are Antibodies Used for Blood Typing?
Use this hands-on science kit to find out! With the materials and activities inside, students can learn about basic human biology related to antibodies and types of blood, while also exploring how biochemical assays can give doctors critical information.
Best of all, we’ve specifically designed this antibodies and blood typing kit to mimic real laboratory work without the need for expensive high-tech equipment - all without the safety concerns associated with handling human blood. The kit uses synthetic blood samples that are functionally similar to real blood but are completely safe for handling and student use.
The human blood groups are categorized into the following:
- Type A blood
- Type B blood
- Type AB blood
- Type O blood
Each of these blood types can have a positive or negative Rh factor (Rhesus factor), resulting in 8 total possible blood types: A positive, A negative, B positive, B negative, AB positive, AB negative, O positive, and O negative. If someone has Rh-positive blood, it means there's an Rh antigen occurring on the surface of red blood cells in their body, whereas someone with Rh-negative blood does not.
Use this "How Are Antibodies Used for Blood Typing" kit to dive into an exploration of antibodies, ABO blood group systems, and ABO blood typing, blood group antigens, agglutination, universal donors, the immune system, incompatible blood, antibody reagents, anti-a reagents, anti-b reagents, and much more!
This kit is designed for use with the procedures in the Science Buddies biochemistry project How are Antibodies Used for Blood Typing?.
Instructions for this kit are available online, see below for links to the instructions and more.
Each How are Antibodies Used for Blood Typing? Kit contains:
- 4 Synthetic blood samples (these are not real blood and are safe for student use)
- 4 Blood typing slides
- 1 Antisera type A (blue)
- 1 Antisera type B (yellow)
- 1 Anti-Rh factor
- 12 Mixing sticks
- 1 Chemical splash goggles
- 1 Disposable gloves (pair)
