Researchers find way to make unlimited amounts of red blood

[frigidmagi]

AJW

Japanese scientists have developed a technique using induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to engineer red blood cells in sufficient amounts to make shortages of blood for transfusions a thing of the past.

Researchers from Kyoto University’s Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) and other institutions transduced c-MYC and BCL-XL genes, which are involved in cell proliferation and help prevent cell death or apoptosis, respectively, into iPS cells. The iPS cells then turned into erythrocyte progenitor cells.

The team led by Koji Eto, a stem cell biology professor at CiRA, was able to inhibit specific functions in the two genes, which turned the progenitor cells into mature erythrocytes--or red blood cells.

The erythrocyte progenitor cells have an almost unlimited ability to replicate in vitro, allowing researchers to produce almost infinite red blood cells from limited amounts of blood samples.

According to the researchers, the new technology produces 20 times the number of red blood cells compared with an existing method using the same amount of culture fluid.

The discovery comes at a time when fewer young people are volunteering to become blood donors.

The team's findings were published in the U.S. journal Stem Cell Reports on Dec. 6.

[rhoenix]

This is awesome, and an advance I'm glad to see.

[LadyTevar]

So, are they type O? neutral cells that anyone can use?

[Josh]

Probably any and all.

That's great, the blood bank can stop getting that gleam in their eye and pulling out the Hoover every time I drop by. "Can you do two units? PRETTY PLEASE?"

[LadyTevar]

Next question:
While this makes unlimited Red Blood Cells, what about blood plasma? Can they simply add the red cells to plain saline solution, or would a unit of plasma be needed as well?
I'm not sure how white cells and platelets are involved (I know what they do, but not how they work in IVs). Are they even used in transfusions?