Regional
In memory of James Harrison OAM - the man with the golden arm
Patrick Capon
Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, Queensland, Australia
Jemma Falkenmire
Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, Queensland, Australia
The world’s most prolific blood and plasma donor, James Harrison OAM, has passed away aged 88. Known as the ‘Man with the Golden Arm’, James is estimated to have helped save the lives of over 2 million babies across 1,173 donations.
James’ story begins not with donating blood, but with receiving it. At 14, he received numerous transfusions following lung surgery. We don’t know for sure, but it’s suspected James was inadvertently transfused with Rh-positive blood, leading him to have an incredibly high concentration of anti-D antibodies in his blood.
James Harrison, aged 20
Fast forward to the 1950s and James is a regular blood donor, having begun as soon as he turned 18 – he was determined to give back. Meanwhile, an Australian doctor, John Gorman, along with Vincent Freda and William Polack were developing the anti-D immunisations that to this day are given to pregnant women at risk of haemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn (HDFN). John Gorman announced the breakthrough at the 1966 ISBT Congress in Sydney, sharing his sister-in-law Kath’s results as the first woman injected with anti-D. Shortly after, James Harrison was asked to join Australian Red Cross Lifeblood’s anti-D donor program. He agreed without hesitation, later quipping that “They asked me to be a guinea pig, and I’ve been donating ever since.”
From that point on, James never missed an appointment. He even scheduled his holidays around them! Up until his retirement from blood donation in 2018, every vial of anti-D prepared in Australia had James’ antibodies in it. Over the course of his donor career, the rate of deaths due to HDFN in Australia dropped around 100-fold to now only 0.01 per 1,000 babies. According to his daughter, Tracey Mellowship “he was very proud to have saved so many lives, without any cost or pain. It made him happy to hear about the many families like ours, who existed because of his kindness.”
James holding a baby
James Harrison is a legend among Lifeblood staff, which led to the affectionate naming of an anti-D research project as ‘James in a Jar’. Creating a new anti-D therapy has long been a research ‘holy grail’ due to the scarcity of donors committed to regular donation who can also produce anti-D antibodies in sufficient quality and quantity.
Lifeblood is collaborating with WEHI researchers, led by Professor Ian Wicks and Dr Behnaz Heydarchi, to recreate the anti-D cocktail in the lab. Thirty anti-D donors, including James, provided blood samples for WEHI to isolate and analyse their peripheral blood mononuclear cells. After collecting several hundred anti-D antibodies and observing how they interact with red blood cells and immune cells, the WEHI team are confident they’ve found a combination of antibodies that work comparably to the donor-derived anti-D product. Now, the team are working toward running clinical trials for the lab-grown anti-D product – a complicated process given the target population is pregnant women.
Ultimately, Lifeblood hopes that knowledge from the ‘James in a Jar’ study can improve the way HDFN is managed for pregnant women worldwide, and that James’ life-giving legacy lives on. It’s with enormous gratitude that we acknowledge the generous life of James Harrison OAM. We thank James for the incredible contribution he made and the millions of lives he saved.
More information: • Vale James Harrison OAM | Lifeblood • James Harrison - The Man With the Golden Arm | Lifeblood • Research study update: Understanding the anti-D immune response | Lifeblood
