Your local blood bank could very well one day start carrying something other than human blood as the Balkan News Agency is reporting a team of scientist from Romania have successfully created artificial blood. The artificial blood has been successfully tested in mice as they didn’t experience any negative symptoms at all as the blood was able to perform exactly how organic blood does.
The blood professor Radu Silaghi-Dumitrescu and his the team developed carries oxygen, unlike previously attempted artificial blood as there hasn’t ever been any oxygen-carrying blood substitutes. Silaghi-Dumitrescuto explains “all the previous attempts to create artificial blood have failed because researchers couldn’t find the right protein to keep the substance immune to stress factors.”
Human testing is still a ways off as Silaghi-Dumitrescu and his team will continue testing their artificial blood on mice until they’re absolutely certain there aren’t any side effects. If all goes well, a future with synthetic blood is one that could certainly help those who need regular doses of blood infusions as well as potentially save lives for those who suffer from extreme blood loss due to a wound. “Tests on humans are a very delicate topic, we need some very serious licenses and they represent an enormous risk,” says Silaghi-Dumitrescu.
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