Having blood available to perform transfusions is crucial during an emergency: unfortunately blood requires special treatment, it must be refrigerated and having it always "ready for use is not easy", but how would the situation change if the medical staff were equipped with packets of powdered blood to be mixed with water for immediate use?
Transfusion medicine has been struggling for decades with the limitations represented by the difficult preservation of blood. The blood must be kept cold, it has a half-life of 42 days and then it is no longer usable, and once taken out of the refrigerator it can only be used during the following 4 hours: a real nightmare for rescuers all over the world. world, and causes a constant need that continually requires donors. At Saint Louis University in Missouri, researchers are turning a science fiction scenario into reality: powdered blood.
The ongoing project has produced an artificial blood surrogate, called ErythroMer: this is an embryonic result which however has achieved significant results in tests on mice. Studies have shown that erythromer it is able to properly release oxygen into tissues just like normal blood, and doctors have managed to “bring back to life” shocked rats that had lost 40% of their blood.
The results were presented last December at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology.
Several stages of research will still be necessary to determine a possible use of "powdered blood" on humans: the next steps are those relating to tests on larger animals to exclude toxicity of any kind, production on a larger scale and subsequently tests on 'man. If it works, with the use of ErythroMer a huge range of critical situations can be addressed in a totally new way.
[note color=”green”]Further Reading: The page dedicated to Erythromer on the Saint Louis University website: https://otm.wustl.edu/technologies/erythromer-blood-substitute/[/grade]
