Blood Transfusion Service Zurich

The Swiss Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service Zurich is one of ten regional blood transfusion services in Switzerland, providing blood products, transfusion medicine, laboratory diagnostics and research services across the Zurich region. Our Molecular Diagnostics and R&D laboratories have specialised expertise in blood group genomics, high-throughput genotyping and long-read sequencing. Oxford Nanopore Technologies sequencing has been established in our laboratory since 2019 and is used to investigate complex blood group systems, including RH and MNS, as well as broader blood group genomic regions. Long-read sequencing enables us to resolve structural variants, hybrid genes, complex haplotypes and rare or novel alleles that may be difficult to characterise using conventional methods. We provide sequencing of Oxford Nanopore long reads for both diagnostic and research applications, with particular expertise in challenging patient and donor samples, unresolved serological/genetic discrepancies, and projects requiring detailed characterisation of complex genomic variation.