The artificial blood is created by extracting hemoglobin — a protein containing iron that facilitates the transportation of oxygen in red blood cells — from expired donor blood. It is then encased in a protective shell to create stable, virus-free artificial red blood cells. As these artificial cells have no blood type, there is no need for compatibility testing. The synthetic blood can reportedly be stored for up to two years at room temperature and five years under refrigeration.
The artificial blood is created from expired donor blood, so we still have to keep donating blood, but it increases the shelf life from 42 days refrigerated to 2 years at room temp, which is pretty amazing. Studies began in 2022.
But also compatibility is now irrelevant. It’s like everyone who donates is a universal blood type.
As a universal donor, this is great news! The blood banks may no longer treat me as special tho, dang…
Oh, so its recycled blood. Ok.
It’s up cycled blood. They take hemoglobin from expired blood (the part that actually carries the oxygen) and wrap it in an artificial cell that lacks the proteins related to blood type. This allows it to be accepted by all people.
Slight correction: blood type is defined by different sugar complexes attached to the cell surface, not proteins, which only serve as anchoring in the cell wall for those sugars 🤓
But yeah, the anchoring proteins are missing too 😁
This is fuckin huge if it turns out to be a winner. I mean, almost on the level of the discovery of penicillin big. I did 15 years in EMS, and the single biggest problem in Trauma care is the lack of blood substitutes. Once those blood cells leave the body, that’s it, they’re gone, and either you’ve got replacement blood or you don’t. Artificial blood has been one of the holy grail pursuits of medicine for decades, and we’ve had many, many dead ends with it. Hopefully they’ve cracked it.
Oh I think I have seen this one, don’t the vampires get to go public now? And we find out werewolves and fairies are real too?
Fun fact: The synthetic blood in True Blood’s lore was also made by Japanese scientists.
Yes, this is the correct progression of events that will occur
Here’s what it looks like:
Amazing accomplishment. Though, does anybody else think it looked like somebody mixed some pepto bismal in a blood bag? I find it a little funny.
It totally looks like purple drank/lean/prescription cough syrup and soda.
looks like grape juice (grape juice™ is not grapejuice juice®)
somebody mixed some pepto bismal in a blood bag
Hospitals HATE this one simple trick!
SOOKIE!
But does it taste the same?
Thinking quickly, Japan constructs a homemade blood from a scientist, a shell and a blood.
Joking aside, I remember articles on artificial blood from 20 years ago, but it always failed in trials. I’m glad to hear things have progressed a good bit.
What’s the microplastic content percentage?
about the same
Has it been brined in PFAS before being injected?
Everything has.
Oh yeah it’s morbin time
All of the commenters are vampires?
No not at all why would you think that? Vampires are not real and we certainly do not use the internet.
We can dream!
At last we can make more realistic squibs for John Wick films.
Why not pig blood, then?
Good question, but I’m guessing no one would want a cops blood running in their veins
That is a good question. I hope, any mammal blood would do.
We can’t make lab hemoglobin yet?
At scale it’d probably be cheapest to just gin up some yeast that produces it. They were probably using expired blood for research purposes because they had easy access
Yeah it’s better to solve the blood substitute problem first. Then if it works look at better ingredient creation.
They’re getting the hemoglobin from expired donor blood.
So presumably, we can use real blood until it expires and then process the expired blood to extend its usefulness for up to 5 years.
This is already a massive improvement.
Any mammal blood contains hemoglobin. Think about that.
Damn.
They’re winning the Nobel for this.
If it works, it will be one of the most deserved ones.
Agreed. Shelf-stable blood by itself is a massive win for medicine.
Shelf-stable universal donor blood from abundant sources is nothing short of a fucking miracle.
