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Respite as Artificial blood set to be produced by British scientists.

Cancer patients and car crash victims could soon be given life-saving transfusions of artificial blood, thanks to a breakthrough by British scientists.

They are close to making vast quantities of platelets, the microscopic cells that make blood clot, reports the Daily Mail of UK.

Platelet transfusions are regularly given to car crash victims, cancer patients and to plug life threatening bleeds after surgery, but the cells have a short shelf life.

Work by the Cambridge University and NHS Blood and Transplant paves the way for a synthetic supply – generated from skin cells.

Excitingly, it may be possible to create one product that suits all patients, removing the need to match it to blood type.

And it may even be possible to supercharge the lab-made cells, meaning they are even better at clotting than the real thing.

The hope centres on stem cells – ‘blank’ cells with the ability to turn into other cell types.

Using cocktails of vitamins and chemicals, the scientists turned skin cells into stem cells. They then coaxed the stem cells into producing cells called megakaryocytes.

These normally live in the bone marrow, where they act as platelet factories.

The team’s technique is so powerful that it is possible to make 200,000 megakaryocytes from a single skin cell. The next step is to trick these factories into making vast numbers of platelets.

Researcher, Dr Cedric Ghevaert, a leading member of the team from NHS Blood and Transplant, which runs the blood transfusion service, said: “Making megakaryocytes and platelets from stem cells for transfusion has been a long-standing challenge because of the sheer numbers we need to produce to make a single unit for transfusion.

“We have found a way to ‘rewire’ the stem cells to make them become megakaryocytes a lot faster and more efficiently.

“It is a major step forward towards our goal to one day make blood cells in the laboratory to transfuse to patients.”

The team is also looking at tweaking the production process to make an off-the-shelf supply of platelets that would suit all patients, no matter what their blood type.

Other tweaks could produce super-charged platelets, the journal, Nature Communications, reports.

The first test transfusions could be given to people by 2020 and the synthetic blood in widespread use just eight to 10 years from now.

Unlike red blood cells, which are also used in transfusions and keep for 35 days, platelets can only be stored for a week, making managing supplies particularly tricky.

Dr Ghevaert said: “We very rarely run out of platelets but it’s always on the edge. An additional supply would be of great benefit.”

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