Yes, blood shortages are a frequent occurrence, as it's dependent on the frequency and volume of volunteer donors.
If this is solution can be scaled up, you would negate the need for the entire blood donation and plasma collection (which is paid for, at least in the US) system overnight. It's a Big Deal.
An “unlimited blood budget” might obviate hemodialysis in favour of just doing a “blood change”, which—depending on how you do it—may protect the liver and kidneys from things we can’t manage to pull out in a single hemodialysis pass.
It might also change the face of surgery. You know the phrase “he’s bleeding out!” Well, who cares? We have blood pressure to spare, now. We could go through a couple gallons during the surgery and it’d be fine. Just hook them up to the tank. Take your time clamping/microsuturing/cauterizing instead of rushing and making mistakes.
Uuuh no. Real blood unfortunately does more than transport oxygen. So "hook them up to the tank" isn't a solution, and isn't a problem only in a surgeon's mind.
What other functions of real blood do you have in mind, that this doesn't at least have the potential to do well for a short period of time in emergencies?
Well, what about immune function? It's pretty interesting to have one when and after you're bleeding out...
And before you tell me the potential is there, please realize that we currently have only a very partial understanding of how that works, and it would certainly require at least two decades of science to get right.
I was talking about what this technique would do “if successful”—as in, if developed further. A full solution would likely include “generic” platelets and innate-immune cells into the mix, genetically-modified such that they don’t present graft-host disease; but would likely leave out adaptive-immune cells, leaving those to the marrow to reproduce.
(Or, helpfully, not; a “complete blood transplant”, done at the same time as a bone-marrow transplant, would serve as a much more immediate reinitialization of the body’s immune system in the face of autoimmune disease. Right now we try to do that with hemodialysis, but although we filter out the memory B- and T-cells themselves, we don’t manage to [immediately] filter out their chemosignals, so autoimmune response currently continues for a few days.)
In under-developed countries like Nepal, yes. Every year women from rural villages lose their lives because of excessive bleeding. No nearby health facility has a blood type segmentation facility; let alone a blood bank. If the government could provide the artificial blood to such rural villages, we could expect to reduce the maternal mortality rate of Nepal to a great extent.
Per the article, natural blood has to be refrigerated and only lasts for a few weeks, while this stuff is good for over a year at room temp. You wouldn't need a blood bank. Every local clinic could keep a few bags in the supply closet.
It's not just blood shortage in total numbers (which is a problem), but people who receive transfusions often develop additional antibodies, which makes it even harder for them to receive compatible blood in the future. There are actually millions of "varieties" of blood not just the 8 main types. It can be so hard to find a successful match that blood is sometimes shipped internationally. Emergency situations can be particularly difficult.
It depends on how much it costs and how well it works (in the humans), neither of which is known at this point.
A cost competitive artificial blood that works as well as whole blood would have a big impact on the current system. An expensive replacement that wasn't as effective for treatment but had longer shelf life or something like that wouldn't have much impact.
Probably not. The "rejuvenating effects" come from the body of young donors, so I don't think the artificial blood contains most of the components that human blood contains.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770779/ (Young plasma reverses age‐dependent alterations in hepatic function through the restoration of autophagy) (Money quote: "Recent studies showing the therapeutic effect of young blood on aging‐associated deterioration of organs point to young blood as the solution for clinical problems related to old age.")
Could you link to something to provide context to your language? I've never heard of young blood -> older patient rejuvination, or how such clinical trials could be done safely. A pint of blood from a child is so much...
There was also a bit in Silicon Valley about how rich old entrepreneurs are hiring young 20 yr old 'blood boys' to transfuse them blood at will. I wonder how true it is.
> I also wonder whether religious groups who don't accept blood would potentially accept this.
I understand they don’t accept blood from other people because they believe the blood is tightly related to the soul. So if the blood is 100% artificial I don’t think they would have a reason to not accept it, unless they find another reason, and I’m sure some obscure group will find a reason to not accept artificial blood either.
At least in the case of one of those groups (Jehovah's Witnesses), it's based on a bit of text in the bible saying literally "abstain from blood". Transfusions are no good, including your own blood previously stored. Fractions and products are in a grey area though and left up to personal conscience.
Yeah. It's not a soul thing (since they don't believe it souls) or an ownership thing, it's that you're taking blood into your body. Fractions and such are considered a grey area since it's not technically "blood" aymore.
I am a JW. Personally, I wont accept anything that I know of having been derived from blood. That would include the artificial blood mentioned here as it is so-derived (AFAIKT it has red blood cells and platelets).
But, already existing blood volumizers are normally sufficient to save a person who suffered extreme blood loss; restoration of flow is more important than restoration of all the blood contents.
I had experience with one such group (Jehovah's Witnesses), so I can speak only about them, but yes, I believe they would happily accept artificial blood. The transfusion ban for JWs is related to their interpretation of Bible's verses about blood as a symbol, and verses banning consumption of blood. They already accept some blood-derived medication; generally, the smaller subcomponent of blood something is, the more acceptable they find it.
I'm curious about the range of derivation from blood. For example, if I took a sample of your blood and made a product that was essentially cloning your blood, would that be the same?
Some people's spiritual rejections lie more in the "we're playing God we shouldn't do x" whereas what you are describing is something in regard to the sanctity of the blood.
Actually to further my understand, would you be permitted to receive blood that you yourself had donated and had been stored for your personal use in the advent of a medical emergency? Again, I'm not trying to pry or question the validity of your beliefs, just seeking to understand.
GP may be more up to date, but from I remember from previous decade, cloning blood would be no-go, and so your own blood that was stored outside of your body. Cardiopulmonary bypass was AFAIR considered OK, because it's considered to be just an extension of body's blood flow.
Things have not changed much. Cardiopulmonary bypass is considered OK, as well as other devices that might be considered as extensions. An individual might still choose to not accept such treatment.
Our feelings are that blood is sacred, and once it leaves the body it should return to the ground. Basically, blood is life, and life belongs to Jehovah.
Cloning blood would be wrong because its misusing something that has specific guidelines around its use. If you could clone the blood without like actually drawing blood from someone for the procedure, I guess that would be OK. This is weird and I am not totally sure.
We would not be OK with storing our own blood for future use, as this would be a kind of usage, and is contrary to the instructions to pour it out. And this would also be considered consumption/not abstaining.
As I think about this, though, it makes me think about using blood in the contexts of blood testing. Hmm.
Anyway I mean the scriptures give some instructions and we are doing our best to extrapolate to other situations. Things aren't always cut and dry. We just do our best to understand.
Thank you for taking the time to explain that - it seems the "abstain from things polluted by idols, from sexual immorality,from what is strangled, and from blood" is obviously a literal interpretation. "From what is strangled and from blood" I always took as profiting from war or suffering but I understand that the challenges of scripture is determine what is literal and what is metaphorical - there's also the concept of what is an "idol" and how is it polluting.
I appreciate you clarifying this. I think I understand a bit more, that there are some aspects of medical science construed as idolatrous, as perhaps glorifying an institution of man and not God.
Have you ever heard of any talk of a ceremony that would somehow reconcile these elements? Again I'm ignorant of JW doctrine and priests don't seem as prevalent, but I'm wondering if there could ever be room for some type of transfusion ceremony that allowed for this, in the precense of correct scripture and religious authority, that was "in the service to Jehovah." Sort of a "Deo volente" thing.
For us, I don't think idolatry factors into the decision re: blood. It is more like those are three things to abstain from.
To your other question, no, we do not have any sort of ceremony like that. But tbh avoiding blood transfusions is nbd nowadays. There are alternatives.
Right. Didn't want to go into too much details here. From what I remember from a decade ago, the "full" blood and the four main fractions were strictly forbidden, and everything further down was left as a matter of individual's conscience.
> I also wonder whether religious groups who don't accept blood would potentially accept this.
Religion is a disease on its own.
If it actively hinders your survival and well-being, what else would you classify it as? It belongs with depression, schizophrenia and all the other psychological disorders.
Most of those groups reject all parts of blood transfusion. This "artificial" blood only replaces the platelets and red blood cells so would still require plasma and white blood cells for a balanced breakfast.
>Platelets can be stored for four days if shaken to prevent solidification, while red blood cells can be kept for 20 days at low temperatures.
I didn't know that the shelf life of blood is that short. Does this mean it is possible that some portion of blood collected from "blood donation programs" goes waste? Because, in our country (Nepal), dozens of such programs are conducted by the Red Cross all around the country.
A doctor in charge of a blood extraction campaign explained to me that this is exactly the reason why there is a constant high demand of blood donors. Between hospitals there are exchanges daily of blood (you might have a certain blood type that another hospital needs right now), but a lot of blood does get wasted, because of the short times it has.
They also separate blood in different kinds (platelets I think it was the term) since it can be storaged for longer, but is not as useful as a full blood transfer.
I don't know the answer to this, but if they do, they should share this information with the public so the public can be aware and more readily volunteer when needed.
> Does this mean it is possible that some portion of blood collected from "blood donation programs" goes waste?
Yes.
For any system which regularly collects some resource and distributes it somewhere else, some amount of that resource goes to waste. It is impossible to absolutely eliminate this. Therefore, all resource-distribution systems expect some level of waste.
If I'm not mistaken, it sounds like this is to be used only in emergency situations almost as if it's some type of "filler" that can help keep your blood pressure up of you've lost an extreme amount of blood. It sounds like it may provide more benefits than that, but I say "filler" because it doesn't sound like you can replace all the blood in your body with this artificial blood.
So although there might be “waste”, emergency preparedness shouldn’t be forgotten about. It’s safer and better to have blood available when it’s needed than to be begging for it.
It must be a better filler than the ordinary, though because from what I remember being told, there already is a standard filler using in "bloodless surgeries" for people refusing blood transfusions; AFAIR a saline solution is good enough if all you need is to keep the blood pressure up.
Yeah, that was my take away from the paper, which doesn't describe the blood as artificial, just some of the components. The HN title is a little misleading, which would better read: "Modified blood that can work for all types and has a shelf life up to a year"
It seems like they are able to take existing blood and modify the type so that even people that aren't universal blood donors can still have it used on anybody that needs it.
Obviously, any blood is better then no blood. But will you survive that long on artificial blood if it doesn't contain all the right properties for your body?
Yeah that was my first thought. Doesn't need to be a full replacement, if side effects are minuscule and long term, this would be a superb buffer. Many hospitals are asking for donations. Well now they might ask for subventions :p
The (immediate) goal isn't to have it so you go get drained and refilled once in a while, it's to have a longer lived substitute that is good enough to use.
So the question is whether it works in emergency situations, not whether it is as good as the real thing in all ways.
From what I understand (also heard about this in a podcast recently), they take existing blood of any type and are able to modify the RH and type. So blood still needs to be donated but it can be any Typs and RH as that is what can be modified to any type and RH now.
Yeah that was it. Reviewing the initial article posted here, it's a different line of research then I was thinking. However it looks like the success rate is still only 60% (when testing on rabbits). The Wiley article on the grant (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/trf.15427) leaves clues that it's still derived from blood at some point and not entirely artificial.
Still very interesting to see that we are making progress towards creating fully artificial, non-type specific blood that anyone can use in a time of need.
How long until we don't need lungs/heart/digestion/etc. any more? With artificial blood it becomes much easier. I think we'll see the 'brain in a vat' in 20 years. This is a huge step towards immortality.
Please read the paper carefully.
They compared plasma without platelets (PPP, platelet poor plasma) combined with their crafted liposomes to platelet rich plasma (PRP). Therefore some donored plasma was needed, to have only a difference in the platelet concentraton. Their artificialy synthesized liposomes could then replace the platelets in the study.
awesome, thats a first step towards putting brain in a jar & super long lifespans. if we can make it with all the nutrients to sustain it then we can shed most of our meat-space parts and interface with neural AI fabric directly.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 76.8 ms ] threadWhy? Is blood shortage a serious problem in medicine?
If this is solution can be scaled up, you would negate the need for the entire blood donation and plasma collection (which is paid for, at least in the US) system overnight. It's a Big Deal.
It might also change the face of surgery. You know the phrase “he’s bleeding out!” Well, who cares? We have blood pressure to spare, now. We could go through a couple gallons during the surgery and it’d be fine. Just hook them up to the tank. Take your time clamping/microsuturing/cauterizing instead of rushing and making mistakes.
And before you tell me the potential is there, please realize that we currently have only a very partial understanding of how that works, and it would certainly require at least two decades of science to get right.
(Or, helpfully, not; a “complete blood transplant”, done at the same time as a bone-marrow transplant, would serve as a much more immediate reinitialization of the body’s immune system in the face of autoimmune disease. Right now we try to do that with hemodialysis, but although we filter out the memory B- and T-cells themselves, we don’t manage to [immediately] filter out their chemosignals, so autoimmune response currently continues for a few days.)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/your-blood-typ...
At least in Australia you're encouraged to sign up for this as you donate, which makes it very easy for them to run the needed tests.
A cost competitive artificial blood that works as well as whole blood would have a big impact on the current system. An expensive replacement that wasn't as effective for treatment but had longer shelf life or something like that wouldn't have much impact.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5836258/ (Young Blood Rejuvenates Old Bodies: A Call for Reflection when Moving from Mice to Men)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770779/ (Young plasma reverses age‐dependent alterations in hepatic function through the restoration of autophagy) (Money quote: "Recent studies showing the therapeutic effect of young blood on aging‐associated deterioration of organs point to young blood as the solution for clinical problems related to old age.")
I wonder whether it truly is compatible with every single person, e.g. even RH-null etc?
I also wonder whether religious groups who don't accept blood would potentially accept this.
I understand they don’t accept blood from other people because they believe the blood is tightly related to the soul. So if the blood is 100% artificial I don’t think they would have a reason to not accept it, unless they find another reason, and I’m sure some obscure group will find a reason to not accept artificial blood either.
Wait, really?
But, already existing blood volumizers are normally sufficient to save a person who suffered extreme blood loss; restoration of flow is more important than restoration of all the blood contents.
Some people's spiritual rejections lie more in the "we're playing God we shouldn't do x" whereas what you are describing is something in regard to the sanctity of the blood.
Actually to further my understand, would you be permitted to receive blood that you yourself had donated and had been stored for your personal use in the advent of a medical emergency? Again, I'm not trying to pry or question the validity of your beliefs, just seeking to understand.
This is a complex question. Some things are clear, some are less so. Basically in the Christian Greek scriptures I believe this is only mentioned once: https://www.jw.org/en/publications/bible/study-bible/books/a...
Here is more info: https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/questions/bible-about-...
Our feelings are that blood is sacred, and once it leaves the body it should return to the ground. Basically, blood is life, and life belongs to Jehovah.
Cloning blood would be wrong because its misusing something that has specific guidelines around its use. If you could clone the blood without like actually drawing blood from someone for the procedure, I guess that would be OK. This is weird and I am not totally sure.
We would not be OK with storing our own blood for future use, as this would be a kind of usage, and is contrary to the instructions to pour it out. And this would also be considered consumption/not abstaining.
As I think about this, though, it makes me think about using blood in the contexts of blood testing. Hmm.
Anyway I mean the scriptures give some instructions and we are doing our best to extrapolate to other situations. Things aren't always cut and dry. We just do our best to understand.
I appreciate you clarifying this. I think I understand a bit more, that there are some aspects of medical science construed as idolatrous, as perhaps glorifying an institution of man and not God.
Have you ever heard of any talk of a ceremony that would somehow reconcile these elements? Again I'm ignorant of JW doctrine and priests don't seem as prevalent, but I'm wondering if there could ever be room for some type of transfusion ceremony that allowed for this, in the precense of correct scripture and religious authority, that was "in the service to Jehovah." Sort of a "Deo volente" thing.
To your other question, no, we do not have any sort of ceremony like that. But tbh avoiding blood transfusions is nbd nowadays. There are alternatives.
Religion is a disease on its own.
If it actively hinders your survival and well-being, what else would you classify it as? It belongs with depression, schizophrenia and all the other psychological disorders.
This is from someone from a religious country.
I didn't know that the shelf life of blood is that short. Does this mean it is possible that some portion of blood collected from "blood donation programs" goes waste? Because, in our country (Nepal), dozens of such programs are conducted by the Red Cross all around the country.
They also separate blood in different kinds (platelets I think it was the term) since it can be storaged for longer, but is not as useful as a full blood transfer.
Yes.
For any system which regularly collects some resource and distributes it somewhere else, some amount of that resource goes to waste. It is impossible to absolutely eliminate this. Therefore, all resource-distribution systems expect some level of waste.
The artificial blood can be stored at normal temperatures for more than a year.
Any idea how this stuff is manufactured? Can it be produced cheaply enough to potentially replace the entire blood donation system?
It's a bit like the the body with vitamins. At first they thought vitamins were all you needed - then they started discovering micro-nutrients.
Blood is pretty complex - does this include just the highest-order bits of blood, or does it include everything that blood has?
Once back in a hospital setting they could switch to using real blood.
1 - Volume - You need enough fluid in a closed system to maintain pressure to push that fluid.
2. Oxygen carrying capacity - Oxygen binds with red blood cells which then deliver it to every cell in your body.
Right now the prehospital setting can more or less manage #1, we have been for a century with Normal Saline.
There is some stuff circulating (pun intended) regarding fluids that can transport oxygen but it will be years before we can use it
So the question is whether it works in emergency situations, not whether it is as good as the real thing in all ways.
Still very interesting to see that we are making progress towards creating fully artificial, non-type specific blood that anyone can use in a time of need.
Fools.
This is True Blood™️.