Researchers move one step towards mass-producing blood for donation

A team of researchers at the University of Bristol and NHS Blood and Transplant in the UK have taken a significant step towards mass-producing blood that is suitable for donation.

Making red blood cells in the lab is already possible. However, the problem researchers are facing is producing blood in a larger scale.

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. But each cell eventually burns out and produces no more than 50,000 red blood cells.

The researchers developed a method to produce an unlimited supply of 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.Once the researchers have this group of cells, they can just trigger them to become red blood cells.

“We have demonstrated a feasible way to sustainably manufacture red cells for clinical use,” said Dr. Jan Frayne, one of the researchers, adding that they’ve already grown liters of red blood cells

However, their work is still far from over.The researchers now have the biological resource to mass produce red blood cells, but they still need the manufacturing technology for mass production.It is like the difference between home-brewing beer and a large brewery.

A bag of blood contains about a trillion red blood cells.

Professor David Anstee, another of the researchers, said in an interview that there is a bio-engineering challenge. “To produce that much at scale is quite a challenge, and really the next phase of our work is to look at methods of expanding the yield,” he added.

The cost will be a massive barrier to wide-scale use of manufactured blood.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.

NHS Blood and Transplant says it has no plans “in any way at all” to move away from traditionally donated blood.However, it can be almost impossible to match some people’s blood – often from minority ethnicities – with a donor.

Anstee added: “The first therapeutic use of a cultured red cell product is likely to be for patients with rare blood groups, because suitable conventional red blood cell donations can be difficult to source.”

Safety trials of lab-made blood are already planned for later this year.

Category: Education, Features