The ready availability of blood transfusion is one of the main problems faced by health systems worldwide. Although much has been invested to produce a artificial blood, where the results were not encouraging. Today, new and encouraging news comes from the war fronts.
Blood is a liquid fabric of nature, part of the connective tissue type. It is a deep red liquid (if rich in oxygen, when working within the arterial system) or a darker red (essentially no more oxygenated and circulating in the venous system), constituting about 7% of body weight, with a viscosity of about four times that of water. In an adult male about 5 liters of blood flow.
Blood is made up of approximately 55% by liquid part called plasma, and the remaining 45% from a corpuscular part, consisting of specific circulating cells.
Plasma , yellow, is composed of water (90%) and protein molecules.
circulating blood cells are represented by red blood cells or red blood cells, lymphocyte, neutrophil granulocytes, eosinophils and basophils, monocytes and platelets.
blood through the circulatory system reaches every organ and body system, giving oxygen and nutrients to body cells and collecting waste products resulting from cellular metabolism.
WHY 'CREATE ARTIFICIAL BLOOD? One of the biggest
limits of its natural blood is not fully compatible among different subjects, something that is due to the existence of four major blood groups in humans .
The ability to transfuse blood from one individual to another is in fact related to the presence of specific molecules on the surface of red blood cells which, if not precisely characterized and selected according to the group compatibility between donor and recipient, may lead adverse reactions, including deaths, in the receiving subject.
The artificial blood, specially created, would make no difficulty of compatibility with any blood type of the recipient. Could then be used immediately, even already in the ambulance, in emergency cases.
Today, each bag of blood is subjected to rigorous serological and molecular evidence potential infections in the donor. However, a percentage of risk is still so much that, according to some data, the incidence of false negative test for HIV is one in 40,000. It is also important to remember that there may be infection, whose etiologic agents are not yet known, and so are not searched in the blood.
The artificial blood, obtained through well controlled and sterile procedures, eliminates the risk of contracting any infection through the transfusion.
Finally, the natural blood, although kept at a controlled temperature, undergoes a decay qualities and functions at the level of cells that compose it. The artificial blood could be added with suitable substances that would make it more stable and thus usable for much longer.
ARTIFICIAL BLOOD TODAY
currently using sophisticated sampling procedures, it is possible to isolate specific components of blood, with the aim of treating them in vitro, for subsequent reinfusion for therapeutic purposes. However, while much has been invested in research with promises then refuted by the experimental results do not comforting, the complexity of tissue blood makes it difficult to present a synthesis of artificial blood that reproduces all of the phones.
Among the companies primarily involved in the synthesis of sintetitici oxygen carriers, such hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers (HBOC) , there are the Baxter, Biopure, the Northfield, each of them through clinical trials phase II and III failed to demonstrate how their synthetic molecules (respectively HemAssist, Hemopure, PolyHeme) were able to bind and release oxygen, so properly. However, there were always recorded side effects, including the onset of hypertension in patients transfused.
More recently, U.S. researchers announced that they have created in vitro particles with the same characteristics of red blood cells . Call red blood cells-Mimicking particles were in fact very similar to red blood cells in shape and size. These particles combine the main ability of red blood cells to bind oxygen with the ability to carry drug molecules or specific tracers of contrast, with the aim of improving the diagnostic procedures for example in the case of nuclear magnetic resonance.
new impetus in this area is now a project funded directly by the Pentagon to cure wounded soldiers in war zones .
The " blood pharming", which began in 2008 and carried out by the research group of the Pentagon, it is effectively in the complex strategy of experimental research aimed at developing effective therapies first aid, in the context of high-risk areas . One of the main problems of war scenarios is also represented by the fact that the areas of conflict are often located in inaccessible areas, which are difficult to reach.
As for the American reality, the majority of donated blood comes from the same territory of the United States. Thus, in some cases more than 20 days may pass before the blood reaches the front lines of war. The risk that blood deteriorates, losing its healing abilities, it is therefore high.
Arteriocyte The U.S. industry, with funding of $ 2 million was for the project, has managed to get the starting from the same tissue blood hematopoietic stem cells that produce physiologically . These hematopoietic cells, umbilical cord, are incubated in a machine that simulates the behavior of human bone marrow.
From a sample of cord blood can be obtained 20 blood bags at a cost of about $ 5,000 a bag.
Arteriocyte has submitted the first samples of blood 0 negative authority Control American Food and Drug Administration , in order to launch the first human testing of the product. It is believed that the adoption of this process, its validation in terms of safety and their implementation on an industrial scale could reduce costs to about $ 1,000 a bag.
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