Kemp Proteins supports enzyme platform to convert blood to type O

Kemp Proteins is stepping into a corner of the protein business that rarely gets public attention but can decide whether a breakthrough ever leaves the lab. The company will support upstream and downstream process optimization and manufacturing for Avivo Biomedical’s enzyme platform, which is designed to convert type A, B and AB blood into universal donor type O blood.

That work matters because Avivo is not describing a theoretical chemistry exercise. The company says its goal is to make more usable blood available inside existing hospital, emergency responder and military systems, where compatibility still shapes what can be used, when, and by whom. In that setting, process optimization is not a back-office detail. It is the bridge between a promising enzyme and a reproducible biomedical product.

The collaboration also highlights how protein-service firms are becoming essential infrastructure for advanced therapeutics. Enzyme platforms depend on consistent production, scale-up discipline and quality controls that can hold under regulated use. Kemp Proteins is being brought in to help make that workflow robust, which is exactly the kind of technical lift that turns protein engineering into a manufacturing story as much as a scientific one.

Avivo has been building toward this point for years. The company says it was formerly known as ABOzymes and adopted the Avivo name in September 2022. It also says John Coleman, PhD became president and CEO effective January 1, 2022. Coleman brings more than two decades of biotechnology leadership, operations and commercialization experience as Avivo pushes a platform it frames as relevant not only to transfusion medicine but also to organ transplantation.

That larger ambition gained credibility in October 2025, when researchers associated with the University of British Columbia, West China Hospital and Avivo reported the first human transplant of a kidney converted from blood type A to type O. The kidney was transplanted into a brain-dead recipient with family consent, allowing researchers to watch the immune response without risking a living patient. According to UBC, the organ functioned for two days without signs of hyperacute rejection.

The science behind that result has been developing for years. A Journal of Biological Chemistry review said enzymatic conversion could create a universal group O donor blood supply if suitable enzymes for A-type conversion were available. More recent papers have pushed the concept into organs: a 2024 Nature Communications study reported enzymatic conversion of human blood group A kidneys during machine perfusion, a 2025 Nature Biomedical Engineering paper reported enzyme-converted O kidneys allowing ABO-incompatible transplantation without hyperacute rejection in a human decedent model, and a 2025 Nature Communications paper on blood group B kidneys said more than 95% of B antigens were removed after three hours of perfusion with enzyme.

The commercial stakes are large. Public reporting around Avivo’s transplant work cited more than 3,500 Canadians and 100,000 Americans awaiting lifesaving organ transplants, while many donor organs still go unused because of blood-type mismatch. Avivo’s platform sits directly in that gap, and Kemp Proteins’ role suggests the next bottleneck is not the idea itself, but the manufacturing system needed to make it real.