Blood is in short supply. We don’t donate as often as we used to, and a lot of people with tattoos and piercings can’t donate on account of hepatitis. And a lot of blood received by people in need— particularly wounded soldiers— is blood that’s been sitting on a shelf for a while.
So our friends at DARPA have handed out a grant to Arteriocyte, based in Cleveland, to ramp up their already-proven method of creating brand new blood from stem cells. ” For that, Arteriocyte is relying on a technique developed at Johns Hopkins University that uses nanofibers to mimic the three-dimensional structure of bone marrow, which manufactures blood in the body. Parent stem cells readily multiply in the matrix.”
Story here.
Just Another Long Day at the Blood Pharm
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I always feel guilty during blood drives. I have O negative, a Universal Donor, yet I cannot donate because of all the meds I take. Bah!
Of course, if I could donate, I would! Although this would involve having accomplices to rush me away as soon as I was done donating because I tend to fall over and alarm the little elderly ladies at the blood drive center or worse, the personnel at United Blood Services, who then mark my chart with ugly things, like DO NOT ACCEPT and the like.
So, hell yes, I’m for Syntho-Blood! In fact, stem cell research should go forward with all due haste.
Then, 100 years from now we can all wonder at the antiquated ideas that kept us from research – like how people used to think it was so awful to do an autopsy on a human body back in Mary Shelly’s time.
Ha! My word verification this time was:
MINGSMEM
Makes me think of Flash Gordon!
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