Red blood cellsWIKIMEDIA COMMONS, MDOUGM
Luc Douay of Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris has successfully completed the world’s first successful human blood transfusion using lab-grown blood, according to a study published in Blood. The blood was derived from hematopoietic stem cells extracted from the volunteer’s bone marrow, which were cultured with growth factors that encouraged differentiation into red blood cells. The researchers then labeled the blood cells and injected 10 billion of them, or 2 milliliters of blood, into the person’s body.
Tracing the labeled cells in circulation, the rsearchers found that 94 to 100 percent of the cultured cells remained in circulation after 5 days, and 41 to 63 percent remained after 26 days, representing a normal survival rate for blood cells. The cells also appeared to ...
