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'Gwada negative': French scientists find new blood type in woman

184 points by spidersouris 2 weeks ago | 68 comments

ajb 2 weeks ago

The OP is low on details. There is more in this article (in french): https://www.lindependant.fr/2025/06/21/il-ny-a-quelle-qui-es...

Apparently the ISBT have added this to their list: https://www.isbtweb.org/isbt-working-parties/rcibgt.html (the page still says 47 but the data tables have it added)

xattt 2 weeks ago

Neither article talks about whether this is a minor or a major antigen.

Blood for transfusion needs to be crossmatched against antigen types of the recipient. Many patients will tolerate several transfusions of a minor mismatched antigen before developing a sensitivity. Major antigens are what cause significant reactions that can be life-threatening.

Minor antigens come into play when crossmatching for infants and premies, but this is way beyond my scope.

JackFr 2 weeks ago

I recently had major surgery and got two units of blood in during the operation and two more post-op. Post-op before I got the blood, they typed my blood again, and a nurse stayed in the room while I got the blood and I wondered why. This comment makes it clear.

xattt 2 weeks ago

Close observation for 15 minutes is typical for any blood transfusion. You do a set of pre-transfusion vitals, vitals when the blood hits the vein, vitals every 5 minutes until 15 minutes is up, vitals every 15 minutes until the blood is done. Ask any nurse why they hate running blood.

Depending on the severity of the reaction, blood will either be stopped or the patient will be loaded up with Benadryl and Tylenol with the blood running at a slower rate.

paulgerhardt 2 weeks ago

> Minor antigens come into play when crossmatching for infants

I’m reminded of that American high schooler in Uganda running an orphanage and ran into this exact issue when doing a transfusion on a malnourished infant. [1]

She was skilled enough to perform a transfusion and knowledgeable enough to test for a ABO+/- match but not so knowledgeable as to be sensitive to this issue with disastrous results.

On the other hand her clinics metrics were on par or slightly above the local hospitals so it’s not clear to me they would have faired better getting care elsewhere there.

[1] https://stories.showmax.com/za/hbos-docuseries-savior-comple...

leereeves 2 weeks ago

I don't know anything about the case in Uganda, but transfusion reactions can happen to anyone, even in the United States.

We don't actually express antibodies to antigens until we're exposed to them, so crossmatching won't detect a minor antigen mismatch until the first transfusion containing the antigen is administered.

That first time causes a delayed hemolytic transfusion reaction, which is generally milder than the kind of reaction crossmatching will prevent, but can be serious or even fatal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_hemolytic_transfusion_...

yorwba 2 weeks ago

With a single known case of somebody producing antibodies against the antigen, it might be a bit hard to say how many transfusions it typically takes to develop a sensitivity.

mmazing 2 weeks ago

Type O Negative here, they all kill me so luckily I don't have to guess!

HarHarVeryFunny 2 weeks ago

Does the concept of O -ve as a universal donor type apply at all outside of the ABO group, and am I understanding correctly from your comment that even within the APO group O -ve compatibility would still be subject to this antigen matching?

Don't we have synthetic blood, at least capable of transporting oxygen ?

kadoban 2 weeks ago

There's not really a synthetic oxygen-carrying blood substitute that's commonly used. Turns out it's actually pretty hard to get right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_substitute has some info on different approaches and products that were/are sometimes used, but the short story is: not really.

ajb 2 weeks ago

That's interesting; I didn't know that to realize it was missing.

dang 2 weeks ago

Ok, we've changed the URL from https://entrevue.fr/en/un-groupe-sanguin-inedit-decouvert-en... to a different article (in English). Thanks!

h1fra 2 weeks ago

@dang should change the OP, entrevue is really a poor website (think tmz)

spidersouris 2 weeks ago

FYI, the only English article at the time of posting was Entrevue's, which is why it was initially chosen. But indeed, Le Monde's article is much better.

wut42 2 weeks ago

TMZ is a very respectable publication if you compare it to Entrevue...

j-bos 2 weeks ago

You'll need to email the mods.

kimos 2 weeks ago

My clearly incorrect understanding was that there are ~8 blood types. So reading that there are 48 is shocking.

nick238 2 weeks ago

There are 48 blood type systems, of which ABO (giving A, B, AB, and O) and Rh (+/-) can be combined to form the 8 common types.

There are effectively millions of types because all the systems combined combinatorially, but most antigens beyond ABO and Rh don't cause that much of an issue, so in emergency cases, they just go with them.

gus_massa 2 weeks ago

A few years ago, I made a comment in a similar topic asking for more details, and I got a very good reply. Hat tip to tait:

> It's complicated.

> There are more than 35 red blood cell groups (see https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/blood-typ... for a nice writeup). For each of those blood groups, there is more than one possible configuration of some protein or carbohydrate (something like more than one possible genetic sequence leading to more than one kind of molecule on the surface of the RBCs).

> And, even with ABO, there can be infrequent variations that make things more complicated (see https://professionaleducation.blood.ca/en/transfusion/best-p... for more).

> For the other blood groups, I think every case the groups were identified because a patient somewhere made an antibody, causing either a transfusion reaction (if not tested ahead of time) or, more likely, a positive (incompatible) reaction on in compatibility testing.

> [...]

It's worth reading the full original comment because it has more interesting details https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33507052

thaumasiotes 2 weeks ago

Why are A and B considered to belong to the same "system"? They combine with each other combinatorially in exactly the same way that rhesus factor combines with them, and presumably the same way that all other systems combine with all other systems.

hn_throwaway_99 2 weeks ago

Blood type systems are defined by the single allele that encodes the antigens (as you point out, sometimes multiple antigens per allele). This table shows all of the different blood type systems, https://www.isbtweb.org/resource/tableofbloodgroupsystems.ht..., and the chromosomal location of the respective allele.

wbl 2 weeks ago

ABO all involve the same gene locus and the same protein just different glycans that get added. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABO_(gene)

thechao 2 weeks ago

Hold my beer; I'm gonna middlebrow this! My best guess (dimly remembered from drawing blood for testing in my lab) is that these "groups" (systems?) all live at the same place on the chromosomes that do/n't express them — they're alleles.

hinkley 2 weeks ago

Is that what’s going on with organ matching?

thecrims0nchin 2 weeks ago

Abo is a major part of organ matching. Abo has to be considered for any organ transplant. Every organ differs but HLA antigens is a different, more complex set of antigens that needs to be matched to some degree as well. Abo is usually a simple test, so hla antigen matching is most of what "organ matching" labs spend their time on. I work in this field.

volemo 2 weeks ago

Yes, but even more complicated.

AnotherGoodName 2 weeks ago

The other thing people should have more awareness of is that plasma and blood have opposite compatibilities; a universal plasma donor will have blood only compatible to their blood type and vice versa.

Which makes the hollywood trope of ‘i’m a universal donor’ really silly. Universal donor of what? And then they pump the blood and plasma straight into the other person pretty much guaranteeing problems since either the blood or plasma will be incompatible. The only reason blood donation works is due to machines that separate the blood and plasma.

greggsy 2 weeks ago

When people are directly piped to each other in movies, I often wonder if there is some negotiation protocol like PD that ensures that the donor continues to charge the recipient, even when their capacities both reach equilibrium.

thaumasiotes 2 weeks ago

> The discovery of new blood types isn't limited to transfusion emergencies. It also sheds light on certain previously unexplained pathologies. The specialist discusses the recent case of three siblings who had suffered from mysterious rheumatological disorders since adolescence. It was only after identifying their rare blood type that doctors were able to establish a probable link with their symptoms.

How does that work? Were all three siblings regularly receiving donated blood? The article doesn't expand on this at all.

spondylosaurus 2 weeks ago

I read it to mean that the rheumatological symptoms they had were the result of their unusual blood type. Hard to say without more info, but something about that particular blood type could be linked to an inflammatory disorder.

kalium-xyz 2 weeks ago

This is one of those things that doesnt matter most of the time but when it matters it really matters.

2 weeks ago

xyst 2 weeks ago

It’s cool to see these discoveries, but as a patient. It’s probably a nightmare to be unique in this aspect.

If American, think higher costs of care. If involved in car accident or other traumatic injury outside of normal area, good luck getting your blood transfused. Might get lucky with substitute. Surgery preparation also more complicated.

Maybe you have competent medical staff that recognize it. Maybe a few hematologists in the world familiar with your blood and history. Maybe a few neurons fire off in the back of an aging emergency physician that recalls this in a case study he/she read about in medical school/residency.

escapecharacter 2 weeks ago

Manga lore fan wikis about to go nuts...

PokemonNoGo 2 weeks ago

Why?

muzani 2 weeks ago

Japanese culture looks at blood type as indicative of personality, like horoscopes.

tetris11 2 weeks ago

I wonder why they named it PIGZ

curtisszmania 2 weeks ago

[dead]

waltercool 2 weeks ago

[dead]

firtoz 2 weeks ago

[flagged]

wincy 2 weeks ago

I worked with some Koreans and asking them about Fan Death is something they’ll laugh about like it’s silly but then say “but for real, you should open the door if you run your fan, just in case”. I’d imagine they feel similarly about blood types. People believe it the way they believe astrology.

paxys 2 weeks ago

Still more reasonable than basing your entire personality on the month you were born.

ashoeafoot 2 weeks ago

Sounds like someone born on the galaxy outward part of the spiral orbit would say.

PS: I prefer pre debunked random universal mysticism to pseudo scientific racism. Some nonsense is the more preferable nonsense.

BrandoElFollito 2 weeks ago

[flagged]

Out_of_Characte 2 weeks ago

That's where correlations of random events and placebo end and where discovery begins.

There are 'gods' that are 'better' than others. Even if the principle of what you/people believe goes against what you find scientifically relevent, or factual, or sensible. There still is something to be said about a group of people following a strange set of rules that could be demonstrably better than other sets of rules and beliefs. May it be enviromental, genetic, placebo or a tiny edge over what gives life meaning. We ended up with the gods we have today, not by coincidence, but because all the other ones failed their followers.

jenadine 2 weeks ago

> There are 'gods' that are 'better' than others

I don’t think that’s valid. Gods usually come with a set of values or a specific worldview, and these are inherently subjective. You can’t really rank them as "better" or "worse" in any meaningful way.

Let’s take an example: imagine I believe in a paperclip-god. The core value here is producing as many paperclips as possible, and I’d argue that anything that doesn’t serve this goal is inferior. Under this belief system, it might be okay to enslave or even kill humans if it leads to more paperclips. I could use logic and even scientific reasoning to defend this idea as a "better" system for maximizing paperclip production.

Now, you might object and say that humans are more valuable than paperclips, but we'll never agree. The value of the goal itself, whether it’s maximizing paperclips or valuing human life, is subjective. There’s no objective reason why one goal is inherently superior to the other.

ajuc 2 weeks ago

> Under this belief system, it might be okay to enslave or even kill humans

This is actually what most christians believe (see Abraham's sacrifice). God is the ultimate source of morality, so if God wants you to kill your son - it's the morally good thing to do.

Which shows nicely that morality does not, in fact, come from God or Bible (if it did - we wouldn't care about Isaac - we'd consider it good that he'll get killed by his father). Instead we can't help but feel it's wrong to kill your son.

It's the conflict of the actual "natural law" vs the artificial religious "natural law" nicely wrapped up in one short story.

BrandoElFollito 2 weeks ago

I wonder if this was inspired by Universal Paperclips (https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html)

jenadine 2 weeks ago

There is some common inspiration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_convergence#Paper...

ajuc 2 weeks ago

Religions compete by "virality", like viruses they evolve towards encouraging reproduction.

Even if you measure "better" as "more viral" - it's not "gods" who are better - it's cultural memes (for example there's 1000 versions of christianity believing in the same gods with vastly different cultures and virality outcomes).

Out_of_Characte 2 weeks ago

I'd guess there is a significant language barrier, for lack of better words, on the meaning of 'god' and 'virtue'(which might have been more descriptive, but I'm not willing to edit my comment for the clarity that it lacks out of respect for the other posters/readers)

Its true that many things co-evolved with us, like viruses and blood types(yes, we're somewhat on topic again) and even though we share many similar characteristics, like blood type, mayor, minor. Its also true that discovery of new things doesn't always invalidate the old way of thinking. Usuallyit just adds to what has already been existing. Like how multicellular life is a true breeding ground for single celled organism.

Similarly, the ABO+- blood type system was good enough to not kill patients, which is quite the improvement. Though only a fool would treat that system as gospel and align personalities with it. Now we're classifying the minor types and we're getting closer to rediscovering the uniqueness of everyones blood just as everyones beliefs,god or no god, is unique if you are willing to look.

I know that HN is not very appreciative of religion or god. I'd just like to change someones perspective on that as we've all evolved from very humble beginnings, both in our personal lives and as the silly monkeys we all still sometimes are. I definitely wouldn't want our economy to become a paperclip maximiser but any perceived missteps should be dissected with a good blogpost on how we got here in the first place.

BrandoElFollito 2 weeks ago

> I know that HN is not very appreciative of religion or god.

> I'd just like to change someones perspective on that as we've all evolved from very humble beginnings, both in our personal lives and as the silly monkeys we all still sometimes are

I am not sure what the relation is between these sentences.

newsbinator 2 weeks ago

Younger generations are now heavily into MBTI. And I mean heavily: you won't find a person under 35 or so who doesn't know their MBTI letters.

BlarfMcFlarf 2 weeks ago

Yeah, cause while blood type is like horoscopes which absolutely no meaningful information, silly personality quizzes at least tell you back what you told them, so some kind of correlation exists, even if the categorization and implications are basically spurious.

viraptor 2 weeks ago

I'm not sure they're really "into" mbti. Most of the people I know who know about mbti talk about their result ironically. About as seriously as talking about their star sign or which planet is in retrograde. I've yet to see anyone actually into it.

3836293648 2 weeks ago

I believe that's more of a thing in east asia. I've stumbled upon it only a few times in English speaking media and never here in Sweden. Though people were obsessed with some colour thing a few years back

progval 2 weeks ago

I'm 31 and I don't know mine.

kingkongjaffa 2 weeks ago

very INTJ of you

kartoffelsaft 2 weeks ago

I am well below that age and I don't know my MBTI letters.

newsbinator 2 weeks ago

A native English-speaking HNer doesn't know their MBTI letters?

Well if that's not a typical young Korean, then who is?

izzydata 2 weeks ago

I remember reading something about peoples personalities being vaguely related to their names which makes even less sense. Unless peoples names subtlety influence their behavior. Perhaps if these blood type ideas are so prevalent in Korea and everyone from a very young age is aware of their blood type they might have a self fulfilling prophecy.

viraptor 2 weeks ago

The names have a decent basic explanation. Names are stereotyped, exist on popular culture and have a bit of language influence (think bouba/kiki). Since some of the personality is inherited, parents' name preference will end up aligning slightly with the whole population which will end up aligning with the kids' behaviours.

wincy 2 weeks ago

Okay but what are the odds of someone named “Doug Bowser” becoming president of Nintendo of America without nominative determinism having at least a grain of truth.

pezezin 2 weeks ago

Japanese people are the same, to the point that even anime characters have a blood type.

gwervc 2 weeks ago

Yes it's defined for fictional characters, but I have the feeling it's more due to their obsession of details. I've never been asked my blood type there in years, whereas some Taiwanese girls asked me the question.

pezezin 2 weeks ago

Oh, they definitely believe in that stuff. Maybe you haven't been asked, but I have, and have been explained how your blood type defines your personality.

Drugein 2 weeks ago

Well, it's definitely true to some extent, since there will 100% be some genes that contribute in some way to a person's personality that are colocated with genes responsible for blood type.

booleandilemma 2 weeks ago

It's pseudoscience, nothing more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type_personality_theory

throwaway667555 2 weeks ago

"nothing more" is an incorrect statement. The science is inconclusive, as science most often is.

balanc 2 weeks ago

[flagged]

ajuc 2 weeks ago

I'm pretty sure you could get statistically significant correlation and publish it (at least in psychology) if you really wanted to :)

petre 2 weeks ago

No worries, they won't go to set up blind dates with Guadelupians.

llm_nerd 2 weeks ago

FWIW, in trying to map normal blood types like O- or AB+ to the 47 (now 48 or 49) blood group systems, apparently that is only basically a value on the type 001 (ABO Group System) and type 004 (Rh group system). People could still have antigens that further bifurcate in the other 45+ blood group systems.

So our ABO+/- system already doesn't have information on the other 45+ systems, and this new antigen wouldn't change that high level classification.