Sangart’s research effort was initiated by Dr. Winslow in publicly-supported research at the Letterman Army Institute of Research and University of California, San Diego and has since been continued by the Sangart team.

Prior to the initiation of this research, conventional wisdom in the blood substitute field held that a successful product must have 1) low viscosity, 2) low oncotic pressure and 3) an oxygen affinity similar to that of blood. Dr. Winslow's research program was originally aimed at testing the validity of these precepts and ultimately found many of them to be invalid. Instead what emerged from the research was a new model for thinking about the mechanism of oxygen transport that has enabled Sangart to understand precisely where in the circulatory system oxygen should be delivered for maximal efficiency and provided the basis for Sangart’s technologies.