In yet another feat in stem cell research, scientists have been able to find a way to produce blood from human embryonic stem cells.
Despite the fact that the procedure has still quite a few touch ups left to be done, before the use of the methodology can be considered a replacement for the real, donor blood, scientists are excited about the possibilities the discovery holds, especially in times of donor blood shortage.
Using a four step procedure, the team of researchers, created red blood cells from embryonic stem cells. These stem cells were initially left to begin their early development, but later they developed into human blood cells once exposed to some human proteins.
The researchers, from the University of Illinois at Chicago and the mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota, were able to develop blood as much as two to three collection tubes full which was around 100 billion red blood cells and all this from a single plate of human embryo stem cells.
Not only was the blood produced by the research team capable of carrying oxygen as normal blood does, it was also produced in several blood groups/ types including A positive, A negative, B positive, b negative and O positive.
The research has opened new doors of possibilities as far as embryonic stem cell usage is concerned and has also guaranteed that if the possibility of usage of this blood in the hospitals becomes a certainty in the near future, it would prevent lot of infectious diseases like hepatitis C or HIV to spread from donors to recipients.
Also it would mean no more scarcity of blood in blood banks, including rare groups also.
"People don't usually think about these types of cells when they talk about human embryonic stem cell therapy, but it is important," Kaufman said. "There are more infections all the time, and the number of donors is more and more limited."
But a number of factors still pose a limitation to this being a possibility. Especially, the fact that, producing blood in labs for the large amount of blood transfusion demand per year, would cost millions of dollars – making it a very expensive proposition.
Secondly, it is still unclear whether the blood produced in the labs is fit in terms of quality, to be used for transfusion in patients yet.
Thus, despite the process of lab production of blood using embryonic stem cells being 100 times more effective than the ones performed before, there is still time before the research can actually be put to use medically.
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