For example, recent studies have shown that storage in the blood bank promotes oxidant stress-dependent alterations of RBC physiology (D’Alessandro et al., 2012; Reisz et al., 2016), a phenomenon that in rodent models is promoted by the levels and activity of a ferrireductase STEAP3 (Howie et al., 2019) and mitigated by conditions associated with decreased RBC iron content, such as beta-thalassemia traits (Tzounakas et al., 2021) or frequent donations by recurring blood donor volunteers (Roubinian et al., 2019). The gene discussed is STEAP3; the disease is beta thalassemia.