Computers to aid blood typing.

Imagine yourself, five years from now, in an emergency room. You're losing a lot of blood, and the hospital staff is about to give you more. The type of desktop computer on hand at the blood bank may make the difference between a quick recovery and prolonged sickness - even death. The job of a technologist is to match a patient's blood with that of a donor by finding which anti-bodies - defense agents of the immune system - are in the patient's blood. According to Phil Smith, professor of industrial systems engineering, Ohio State University, there are more than 400 other antibodies that also may be present, and identifying them requires expert detective work. "Though relatively rare - certainly less than one-tenth of the population have an unusual antibody - they must be taken into account when matching blood." If an antibody present in a patient's blood is undetected or misidentified, he or she may be given blood that triggers a rejection response.

Correctly identifying antibodies can be as difficult as diagnosing a disease. "By adding a small amount of blood serum to test cells and monitoring the reaction, technologists can narrow down the field of possibilities, but the process involves lots of high-level reasoning, logic, and intuition." With the help of the right type of computer, they may be able to improve their ability to identify antibodies. "But, as we [have] learned from other fields, it's important to find the best way for the computer to share its expertise with the...