Preface

Abstract

Since in the last few years clinicians and proteomicists have rapidly reached the rendez-vous point, we are currently in the middle of the docking manoeuvres. Two formerlyindependent worlds have started to cooperate, with the declared intent to ameliorate the quality of the production and handling processes of blood components and plasma derivatives, with the shared goal to guarantee their safety and effectiveness for the whole health care system. This special issue tries to add some little pieces to this yet complicated puzzle, since it represents an attempt to sail across the mare magnum of the actual knowledge in this research endeavour, to the end of summarizing the main advancements. In the light of what emerges, blood-related proteomics appears as much as promising as never before. In particular, proteomics has been recently transformed from a mere basic-research expensive toy into a dramatically-sensitive and high-throughput research tool which could be exploited to investigate the molecular mechanisms of blood and blood components and promises to establish quality parameters in the blood-banking production-chain totally anew.