Scientists Discover New Way of Producing Red Blood Cells

A team of researchers led by specialists from the Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center found that "turning off a single gene leads to a roughly three-to-five-fold gain in the yield of laboratory methods for producing red blood cells from stem cells," according to Science Daily.

The findings, a result of a study that has been published in Cell Stem Cell, suggest a way to produce red blood cells cost-effectively via stem cells.

"The patients who could potentially benefit include those who cannot use blood currently available in blood banks," the science news portal said.

"Dr. Vijay Sankaran, assistant professor of pediatrics at Boston Children's Hospital, and his colleagues took blood stem cells, which are the cells that mature into all of the blood cells, and performed genetic surgery on them to make them more likely to produce more red blood cells," Time noted. "They found a particular gene, identified in previous studies, that is linked to lower levels of red blood cells."

"Turning off this gene, Sankaran figured, might be a way to release the brakes on the process and boost the numbers of red blood cells," the news source added.

Sankaran's theory proved him right. Changing the said gene and getting the stem cells to turn into blood cells led to the triple-fold multiplication of the red blood cells.

Sankaran said that with more improvements to the process, blood shortages may not become a problem in the future.

This is not the only application of the breakthrough, though.

"If it works for blood stem cells, it might also work for other cells types that we might need to generate in greater volume, including muscle and nerve cells destroyed by disease," Time said further. "Drug makers might also find the results useful, since it provides a new way of delivery medications directly to cells."

Currently, the method costs $15,000 per unit of blood generated. Sankaran hoped the costs could go down to about $2,000 per unit to make the price tag reasonable for patients.

This is not the first attempt at finding ways to produce more blood. Last year, it had been announced that University of Edinburgh professor Marc Turner found a way to produce artificial blood.

"Through the use of pluripotent stem cells - regular cells removed from the human body and then transformed into stem cells - Turner and his team of researchers were able to create blood type O red blood cells," Medical Daily said.

Then, in June this year, UK scientists said they will start doing trials on humans using artificial blood developed in a lab using stem cells, as reported by Fox News.

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