Lab Report - How Antibodies Are Used for Blood Typing

Introduction:

In NEW School, we are learning about immunology and how certain vaccines affect our immune system. To demonstrate the humoral system we were looking at blood typing and how antibodies and antigens work in the body.

Purpose: What is Abbey’s blood type?

Hypothesis: If Abbey’s blood presents antigen A or B on the surface of her red blood cells, then her blood will agglutinate or clump when placed in the same agent that her blood type is, because the agent that her blood reacts with will contain anti-A or B antibodies similar to the human humoral system, which produce antibodies to fight against antigens that they do not recognize.

Materials:

• Anti-A reagent (1 drop)
• Anti-B reagent (1 drop)
• Anti-Rh serum (1 drop)
• Blood typing tray (1)
• Disposable gloves
• Alcohol swabs
• Lancet (1)
• Human blood
• 3 mixing sticks (toothpicks)
• Band-aids
• Bleach water bath to cleanse materials after used

Procedures:

1. Take one blood typing tray and add 1 drop of anti-A agent into the A divet of the tray
2. Add one drop of anti-B agent into the B divet of the tray
3. Add one drop of anti-Rh factor into the Rh divet of the tray

4. Put gloves on whoever is pricking the patient’s finger
5. Wipe one of their fingers with an alcohol swab to clean it
6. Prick one of their fingers with the lancet

7. Take one drop of blood on a single toothpick and add it to the anti-A agent
8. Repeat the previous step on clean toothpicks for both the anti-B agent and the anti-Rh factor
9. Mix the blood and agents together for about thirty seconds
10. Look at each agent closely and see which ones the patient’s blood clumps in
11. Whatever agent their blood clumps in means that they are positive for that blood type/factor

12. Put a band-aid over the lancet prick
13. Clean the lancet, toothpicks, and blood typing tray in the bleach bath before disposing of them

Examining Abbey’s Blood Type

Trial Number	Reaction with Anti-A (Y/N)	Reaction with Anti-B (Y/N)	Reaction with Anti-Rh (Y/N)
1	Y	N	Y

Conclusion:

Claim: Abbey’s blood type is A positive.

Evidence:

Reasoning: You can see in the picture above that the blood started to clump in the red liquid, as well as the yellow. This shows us that her blood clumps in the anti-A antigen as well as the rH. If her blood clumps in the anti-A (basically type B blood), then we know she is the opposite because when blood clumps, that means the antigens inside of the body are swarming the foreign invaders. Abbey’s blood cells (type A) are acting as the foreign invaders inside of the anti-A antigen section within the tray.

Our hypothesis was not made before this lab; however, we were able to make one after we knew our results. We took our knowledge and made one that would be feasible in the lab. The conclusiveness would be more enhanced if we had more trials in this lab. We only did one trial, which is reliable, but not completely clear. The procedures were very easy to follow and this was a very interesting lab to go along with, considering I was not the student who was pricked.