SAN ANTONIO – A big blue bus will soon be traveling across Texas, and it’s the first of its kind for making cutting-edge medical technology more accessible.
“This beautiful bus that we have here is called the mobile leukapheresis center,” Naomi Herrera, the senior manager of clinical leukapheresis services with BBG Advanced Therapies, said.
Leukapheresis is a process that collects white blood cells. It’s a key step to creating some of today’s most advanced, life-saving treatments.
“The people that we help are usually patients who have any type of blood cancer or blood disease,” Herrera said.
Some people live hundreds of miles away from the nearest leukapheresis center in Texas. BBG Advanced Therapies, a subsidiary of BioBridge Global, built this bus to break those barriers.
“It’s going to change health care access, especially for rural and underserved communities out there,” Herrera said. “We know that there are a lot of them out there.”
This bus means even more to Herrera because of her daughter, Taylor Castro.
“She was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia,” Herrera said. “We did have to send her to a different city to have some types of treatment done. ... She was gone for a month.”
Castro was a young mother battling an aggressive blood cancer. She died in 2019.
“If we had this at that time, I feel that we would’ve had that extra month, and maybe she would have gotten treatments a lot sooner,” Herrera said.
“Do you believe this bus is going to change other people’s stories?” KSAT reporter Avery Everett asked.
“Oh, I know it is,” Herrera said. “And that is our fight to help change stories for the better.”
Collections have already started onsite in San Antonio, and soon, they’re getting ready to hit the road.
To read more about the program, click here.
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