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Stem cells and Blood Donation

Stem cells and Blood Donation

Scientists have created red blood cells from human embryonic stem cells, in a step that they say could mean an infinite source of blood for transfusions.

The team at Worcester, Mass.-based Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) says that if they can develop type-O negative blood—so-called "universal donor" blood because the body's immune system will not reject it—there could be an inexhaustible supply. They were able to grow type A, type B, and type O blood, but did not make type O negative.
They've grown these in the test tubes and been able to get them to mature so that many aspects of these cells look like [red blood cells] that you make and I make. They did not tested these cells on human so far.
In RBCs there are sugar on the surface of the cells and make them to recognize by the immune system and if immune system find them risky, it immediately kill the cells, so there is lot of work to do in this area so that these could be use as therapy.

For further details
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=could-stem-cells-make-blood-donatio-2008-08-19


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