Mass producing industrial quantities of red
cells for transfusion has apparently become significantly closer according to the BBC.
“Red
blood cells can already be made in the lab, but the problem is scale. A team at
the University of Bristol and NHS Blood and Transplant have developed a method to
produce an unlimited supply. the artificial blood will be far more expensive
than conventional donation. So it is likely to be used for people with very
rare blood types.
The old
technique involved taking a type of stem cell that manufactures red blood cells
in the body and coaxing it to do so in the lab.
However,
each cell eventually burns out and produces no more than 50,000 red blood
cells. The trick developed by the Bristol team was to trap the stem cells at an
early stage where they grow in number indefinitely. It is known as making them
immortal.
Once the
researchers have this group of cells, they can just trigger them to become red
blood cells.Dr Jan Frayne, one of the researchers, said: "We have
demonstrated a feasible way to sustainably manufacture red cells for clinical
use.
"We've
grown litres of it." “
It might cost more, but presumably there won’t
be the risks of infection. But with increased availability will demand increase?
On my first week in this job I was told not to
go into blood transfusion as there were dogs in Japan being kept alive on
artificial blood, and it was only a matter of time until human blood
transfusion became a thing of the past.
That was in 1981…
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