UK scientists are about to embark on a project to scale up the production of synthetic blood from stem cells.

A team led by the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service will try to use stem cells from human embryos not needed in IVF treatment to produce type-O negative blood. This blood would then be free of any risk from viruses.

“In principle, we could provide an unlimited supply of blood in this way,” says Marc Turner, director of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service and a researcher at the University of Edinburgh (BBC).

“We should have proof of principle in the next few years, but a realistic treatment is probably five to 10 years away.”

The Independent notes:

Scientists in other countries, notably Sweden, France and Australia, are also known to be working on the development of synthetic blood from embryonic stem cells. And last year, a team from a US biotechnology company, Advanced Cell Technology, announced that it has been able to produce billions of functioning red blood cells from embryonic stem cells.

In a separate article the paper points out that ACT managed to make up to 100 billion red blood cells, but that a litre of donated blood contains around 5 trillion cells.

Site: Alamy