Everything points to it. Scientists from Great Britain have developed a method of producing natural blood under laboratory conditions. Unfortunately, the new technology is relatively expensive and will for some time only be used to obtain rare blood groups.
“Real” blood is made of stem cells in the bone marrow. Researchers from the University of Bristol and NHS Blood and Transplant – thanks to bioengineering – were able to reproduce this process in the laboratory.
Dr Jan Frayne of the University of Bristol says that a slightly different method will have to be used for mass blood production, because normal, specialized cells can only divide a certain number of times. Such a method would be inefficient.
The British decided to keep stem cells from growing and multiplying them first, because they can divide indefinitely. When there are enough of them, they are converted into blood cells of a certain type.
Dr. Jan Frayne told BBC News that several liters of blood have already been produced in this way. For now, it is only a laboratory production technology. Work is underway to make blood mass-produced on an industrial scale.
Prof. However, David Anstee, who is also involved in these studies, reserves that bioengineered blood is not a substitute for blood obtained from donors at blood donation stations. It is only supposed to complement it.
Producing blood in the laboratory is very expensive and the method will – at least for now – use it to produce extremely rare blood groups.