Fake Blood, for Use in Real Humans
- Posted by: Andrew Price
- on March 25, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Fake blood, for use in real humans, is on it’s its way. On Monday, three medical organizations in the United Kingdom announced a joint research project to create “synthetic blood.”
They’ll make the blood by growing stem cells from embryos destined to have type O-negative blood into mature red blood cells. Their goal is to start testing the synthetic blood within three years and have practical treatments available in “five to 10 years.”
If they pull it off, there could be, in principle, a limitless supply of disease-free O-negative blood on hand for emergency transfusions at the scene of an accident or on the battlefield. It’s ethically thorny (the stem cell thing, again), but it’s certain it’d save lives.
And, to look a little further ahead, once we have synthetic blood what’s to stop us from enhancing it to deliver oxygen more efficiently, or keep you from getting drunk (or keep you perpetually drunk), or whatever? The singularity is nearer.
DISCUSSION: 9 Comments
:-O
That is spectacular. Though the engineering/enhancing bit is a possible downside, having a limitless supply of blood would be unbelievable for emergency personnel and hospitals. Lives would literally be saved.
Well I suppose the vampires will rejoice.
There are certainly some who would love to use this to “not get drunk or stay drunk”, I look forward to the possibilities it might hold for those with Sickle Cell Disease.
True Blood IRL
Awesome. Screw the stem cells, lets just get these things hooked up to machines and have em constantly pumping blood out.
well if it’s proliferated and grown from embryonic stem cells, it’s not fake blood, per se, it’s real blood just grown in vitro haha. This is just the beginning of the possibilities of stem cell research. We can grow whole organs, and organ systems, damaged tissues, cancer patients can find hope in new organs that can replace cancerous ones. And to think, federal funding was delayed for years under the Bush Administration for such a hopeful field in medical research.
It would be cool if you could even costumize the color in which this synthetic blood would come in. Just imagine; a doctor walks in the room to prep a little boy for a blood transfusion and says, “well timmy it’s time to give you new blood! So since you’re such a cool kid, who about we evn give you cool blood? So what will it be, Blue blood or Green blood?! Ooo.. Isn’t that awesome?!” Lol. Sure beats getting a choice between choosing band-aids with either race-cars or unicorns!
sorry for not commenting specifically about the article, but it irks me to see “it’s” misused. your first sentence should read: Fake blood, for use in real humans, is on its way.