Infinite red blood cells? A team of scientists from the University of Bristol (United Kingdom) has managed to create immortal stem cells capable of generating artificial red blood cells without limits, which will help patients in need of a large number of blood transfusions or even patients with unusual blood groups.
This milestone in medicine will be a hopeful aid and alternative to blood donations from human donors, since artificial blood will be much more effective for medical use than donations currently available.
Finding donors of rare blood groups such as O- or even the rarest blood in the world such as B- will no longer be a problem, since thanks to this new system it will be possible to have all the necessary types of blood artificially manufactured to measure thanks to these ‘immortal’ stem cells.
As if this benefit were not enough, another of the positive points of using this new system is that the blood will not transmit diseases . Liters and liters of blood ready to save lives.
Taking into account that each stem cell produces approximately 50,000 red blood cells before disappearing, the researchers transformed adult stem cells into a line of stem cells called immortalized erythroids that have the ability to grow indefinitely and uninterruptedly from these premature red blood cells. , before being differentiated into mature red blood cells. The cells have been named Bristol Erythroid Line Adult , or BEL-A cells.
“ The patients potentially most benefiting are those with complex diseases , such as sickle cell anemia and thalassemia, which may require multiple blood transfusions. The intention is not to replace blood donation but to provide specialized treatment for specific patient groups.” explains Dave Anstee, Director of the NIHR Blood and Transplant Research Unit at Red Cell Products and a co-author of the paper.
The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications.
