Brian Custer

Dr. Brian Custer joined Vitalant and the Vitalant Research Institute in 2004 and is a leading expert in epidemiology and health outcomes research focused on blood donors and transfusion recipients. His research program addresses topics in infectious disease epidemiology, health policy, health economics of the blood supply, and the effectiveness of transfusion medicine interventions. He is a principal investigator for multiple projects funded by the National Institutes of Health; National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute; and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Current research includes Recipient Epidemiology and Donor Evaluation REDS-IV-P (Pediatric) studies in the U.S. and Brazil, the U.S. Transfusion Transmissible Infections Monitoring Systems (TTIMS), and the Assessing Donor Variability And New Concepts in Eligibility (ADVANCE) study. Each of these projects, as with recently completed REDS-III studies in the U.S., Brazil and South Africa, brings together multidisciplinary teams to answer key questions in blood safety and transfusion medicine. Dr. Custer currently serves as chair of the International Society of Blood Transfusion Transmitted Infectious Diseases Working Party and is actively involved in several committees and working groups of the Association for the Advancement of Blood and Biotherapies (AABB), including the TRANSFUSION editorial board. He has authored more than 200 research papers.