Blood is a bodily fluid in animals. It is a transporting medium in the body which involves in the transportation of nutrients as well as gases. Blood is actually a tissue which is composed of blood cells suspended in blood plasma

Being an essential requirement for life, loss of blood from the body (in many different ways) has been a killer during our entire existence. There are about 107 million blood transfusions taking place per year, worldwide. But this has never stopped the demand for blood by the community.

As we all know there are manly 6 different types of blood groups (A, B, O positive and negative). Did you know that only 7% of the world population has O negative as their blood group? This has made O – negative the most sought-out blood group universally……. Well, not anymore.

During the past couple of years Science and Technology has taken many leaps for the mankind. And this doesn’t seem to have a pause anytime nearby. The latest leap taken by science is “Laboratory production of blood”. Though many groups of scientists tried to develop Red Blood Cells under laboratory conditions , for the very the first time ,the Scottish researcher, Marc Turner has succeeded  in the production of blood, meeting the requirements to be transfused into a human, safely. This process involves induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs).

Induced Pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to an embryonic stem cell–like state. Stem cells are the cells which are at the early stage of growth and development which have the potential of developing into any type of cell in the body. In the process of developing blood cells, Induced Pluripotent stem cells are directed to differentiate into blood cells. This process is still on an experimental basis. The scientists involved with the experiment expect to begin the human trials in late 2016 or in early 2017. So it would take a really long time till the process is ensured to be safe and reliable. So folks, don’t give up on blood donation yet.  The world still needs your worthy donation.

Well clearly, this isn’t going to be an easy task. With the unlimited universal demand for human blood, and also due to the fact that each unit of blood contains a huge number of blood cells (millions and millions) factory made blood is not going to be a really simple task.

But nothing is impossible. So, “let’s keep our fingers crossed”.

Source:  www.telegraph.co.uk

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