Drew was born in Washington, DC, June 3 1904. He attended Amherst College where he was an all-American football player. When the US entered the war in 1941, Drew was elected director of the bood for the national research Council, collecting blood for the US Army and Navy. He set the ground work for the Red Cross collecting and banking procedures.

Charles Drew was the first Negro to earn a doctorate in medicine from Columbia University. He went on to become the leading authority on the preservation of blood for transfusion. He developed the first "blood banks" for the storage of large quantities of blood. He organized and directed the blood-plasma programs of the US Army, and worked to stop the exclusion of Black blood from plasma banks. He later became a surgeon and professor of medicine.

Drew headed Howard University's department of surgery and chief surgeon at Freedman's Hospital. In 1944 he was prmoted yo hospital chief of staff and medical director, aposition he held until 1948. In 1950 hewas killed in a car accident on his way to a medical conference.