Scientists have Created the World's 1st Blood Factory

This isn't a scene from "Hellraiser XXV: Dear God The Franchise Is Still Going", but a major breakthrough in medical technology.  With the ability to grow blood in bulk we might never have to sit through another "Please please give blood" ad ever again.

A combination of commercial and academic researchers have produced a hundred billion blood cells by emulating the blood production system in human bone marrow.  While that's only 1% of the blood in a human body, once you've got the process down you can just leave it running like the world's goriest tap - with the advantage that lab equipment very rarely does drugs or engages in unprotected sex, so the blood will be guaranteed disease free.

The final barrier is producing O-negative blood, the relatively rare "universal donor" type that can be transfused to any patient.  Fun fact: give someone the wrong type of blood and parts of their cardiovascular system will solidify!  The only thing holding the researchers back isn't an experimental problem, or a funding issue, but sheer governmental stupidity: the religiously-right-rooted difficulties in stem cell research mean that there are no O-negative stem cells approved for use in the US.  We can only hope that those who bleed to death on the operating table in the meantime get some kind of "Sorry for the inconvenience" discount at the pearly gates.

Luckily what stupid causes, science fixes.  A recent sidestep to stem-cell-shenanigans is applicable to this work, the use of induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSC) to generate stem cells from regular skin tissue.  This will be an awesome combination of recent breakthroughs to immediately and obviously save lives - and anyone who still insists that genetic engineering is bad will suddenly have an awful lot of regular people to convince.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Blood building
Induced Pluripotent Cells

Image Credit: http://uk.gizmodo.com/2007/05/11

Comments

[upirons]

Wow, didn't know they were this close to such a breakthrough. I'm glad too, because I have type O negative blood and the red cross is always trying to take my blood - despite horrible bruising I get every time I give. That's one job I'm glad a machine can take over.

[Dennis]

Yeah, they love you at the Red Cross -- at the emergency ward, not so much.