Scientists from a US firm claim to have created a large number of red blood cells from human embryonic stem cells, opening up the prospect of having a limitless supply of blood for transfusions.
"Limitations in the supply of blood can have potentially life-threatening consequences for patients with massive blood loss," said Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer at Advanced Cell Technology (ACT), a Worcester-based company.
"Embryonic stem cells represent a new source of cells that can be propagated and expanded indefinitely, providing a potentially inexhaustible source of red blood cells for human therapy. "We can currently generate 10 to 100 billion red blood cells from a single six-well plate of stem cells," he said in a paper published online in the Blood journal.