We had many members today to listen to David Wellis from the San Diego Blood Bank and to celebrate George Sousa's 89th birthday!
Paul kicked off the meeting by showing a video on Polio's progress and how it has impacted lives.
Polio Video: Click here
Then everyone had a fun time celebrating George' birthday with a cake that Bill & Suzanne decorated and brought in.
Patricia had some fun with punishments for people who did not bring gifts for the Toy drive :-).
Following that we had the 1-minute Rotary talk by Jon Fish.
Following George's party, Venky showed a video that the past Indian Ambassador to the United States had created to honor South Asian musicians from various countries. This can be viewed below.
South Asian Music Video: Click here
## "San Diego Blood Bank" by David Wellis
David is a cell biologist with over 25 years of experience in the life science industry and currently serves as the CEO of the San Diego Blood Bank. David joined SDBB following his tenure at a variety of companies that developed antibody therapeutics and tools for biomedical research, diagnostic and applied markets, including Illumina and GenVault. David received his B.S. from UC Irvine, an M.S. and Ph.D. from Emory University, postdoctoral training at Tufts University and UC Berkeley, and business training at Leavey Business School of Santa Clara University and Haas Business School at UC Berkeley. David serves on the Executive Committees of the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute at UC San Diego, and the All of Us Research Program at the National Institutes of Health. He also holds board and committee roles in several national blood bank organizations and local biotechnology companies.
He said that the blood bank is a local San Diego organization but it has regional and national reach. The relationships with Jonas Salk helps with lots of research work on blood. He said that a person loses about 600 calories when you donate blood. All the blood collected comes to the central office every day where it is processed until 2:30 pm and then gets distributed. They deliver blood to over 75 locations each week.
They are part of a National Donor Club called "Be The Match". This program saved a child's life 15 years ago. Last match was sent to Texas Children Hospital recently. They also participate & promote many community events with Padres, Comic Con and Chargers Drive where they setup blood mobiles to collect blood. They collect over 3,500 pints over a 3-day event. Turns out that Los Angeles & Orange County do not have blood banks and San Diego supplies to them.
They also started a Mother's Milk Bank where moms bring breast milk in coolers. They collected milk in 1 day that San Jose did in a year!
The average cost of collecting a pint of blood is $50, which includes the cost of needles, supplies, testing, etc. They currently have 7 blood mobiles, each costing $750,000. They need 3 more.
At the end, DMSB Club President Venky Venkatesh presented the speaker with the Joshua certificate that represents our club DMSB donating school supplies to schools in Malawi in the name of the speaker.
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