Artificial Blood: The Future of Saving Lives!

Nearly 120 million units of blood are donated worldwide each year, but even that isn’t enough to meet all medical needs, especially in emergencies. Many patients still lack access to safe, timely blood transfusions because the supply can’t keep up with demand.

Limited infrastructure for collecting, storing, and testing donated blood, plus shortages of volunteer donors, only deepens the problem. This leaves hospitals in poorer areas struggling to provide lifesaving care for surgeries, trauma, childbirth complications, and severe anaemia.

That’s why a low-cost, long-lasting artificial blood substitute, one that works across blood types and doesn’t need refrigeration, could be transformative for global health.

What Is Artificial Blood?

Artificial blood is a lab-made substitute designed to do the most important job of real blood: carry oxygen and carbon dioxide through the body, especially when donated blood isn’t available. It doesn’t replace all the components of natural blood, but it mimics the oxygen-transport function, helping doctors care for patients in emergencies, during surgery, and in areas with scarce blood supplies. Unlike regular donated blood, artificial blood is not from human donors and can be manufactured in laboratories with advanced science.

The two broad categories include:

1. Haemoglobin‐based oxygen carriers (HBOCs): They use modified haemoglobin to carry oxygen.
2. Perfluorocarbon (PFC) emulsions: These are synthetic compounds that dissolve gases, such as oxygen and carbon dioxide.

A Breakthrough from Japan

Recently, researchers at Nara Medical University, Japan, have made one of the most important advances in artificial blood:

1. Universal Compatibility: This artificial blood is compatible with all blood types, eliminating the need for time-consuming blood-type matching and decreasing the possibility of mismatched transfusions.
2. Extended Shelf Life: Human blood has a shelf life of about 42 days; however, this artificial blood can be stored for up to 2 years at room temperature and 3 years when refrigerated.
3. Virus-Free & Stable: The removal of the immune triggers, in addition to encapsulation of the oxygen-carrying molecules, protects them from being broken down by viruses. This means that the artificial blood product is extremely stable and can be used in emergency situations where virus-free blood is needed.
4. Clinical Trials in Progress: Clinical trials are currently in progress in healthy volunteers, and researchers are working toward practical use of the product as soon as possible (if trial results are good) by 2030.

With this advance, the availability of blood may not be limited by the challenges of transporting blood products to rural locations (ambulances), disaster areas, and those countries that are experiencing conflicts and/or war.

Why the World Needs Artificial Blood?

1. No Compatibility Testing Needed: Artificial blood can be used on anyone, regardless of blood type, and it also greatly reduces the time to receive blood in an emergency, where every second counts.
2. Easier to Store and Distribute: Artificial blood can be stored for longer than regular blood. It can be stored without refrigeration, allowing medical professionals to keep large quantities of artificial blood on hand, especially in remote areas or other locations without access to large amounts of blood.
3. Decreased Risk of Transfusion Reactions: Because artificial blood is not derived from human blood and lacks the viral or immunogenic components of human blood, it has a significantly lower risk of transmitting viruses or causing adverse reactions during transfusion.
4. Potential to Save Millions of Lives: Experts in blood, including the World Health Organization, believe that blood shortages occur consistently worldwide; the ability to produce and store artificial blood would fill this gap and reduce the number of people who die because they are unable to receive blood in a timely manner.

Current Limitations & Challenges

The potential of artificial blood is beyond measure; however, some obstacles include:

1. Not a complete substitute for blood: Artificial blood can only mimic some functions of natural blood; for example, there is still no way to produce artificial blood that supports the immune system or supports clot formation/metabolism.
2. Cost & Production: To produce reliable forms of artificial blood, one requires sophisticated machines as well as specialists who understand how these machines work, and thus, the production of artificial blood will result in high costs that are difficult to scale.
3. Testing and validation processes: As with anything else in medicine, artificial blood must undergo a long series of clinical trials and receive the approval of governmental authorities before being widely available.

Transfusion Science Will Soon Hit a New Frontier

Imagine what life would be like in a world that had:

1. Ambulances stocked with universal blood units and able to be immediately available worldwide.
2. Hospitals, no matter how remote, are stocked with blood units for use in life-saving situations.
3. No longer would blood shortages restrict enough time or the ability to perform surgery or treat a trauma patient.

This is the potential of artificial blood and the latest developments in transfusion science; researchers continue to make progress toward making this technology a reality. We may be able to make artificial blood a reality, leading to changes in emergency medicine over the next 10 years!

Conclusion

Artificial blood could change how we think about healthcare logistics. In addition to saving lives, it provides an excellent way for healthcare systems to reduce annoyance and reliance on voluntary blood donation programs. Although still in early development phases, labs around the globe are advancing towards producing Hydrogen Peroxide/Artificial Blood Stock Solutions, providing hope that they will one day produce Artificial Blood that can be considered safe enough to use worldwide.