Blood shortage and the quest
Blood shortage
Foreign if there's one thing in the world there should be enough of it's blood after all five to seven liters of it flows through the veins of eight billion of us but we can't afford to lose more than a liter and a half afterwards of course that you are in dangers of bleeding and the risk of dying one in three people will require a blood transfusion in the course of their lifetime Charlotte speaking please send a patrol car to Mr Peterman immediately urgent call for blood donation life-threatening situation thank you thank you worldwide over 300 million units of blood are needed every year but where is it all supposed to come from [Music] just make it that's the Holy Grail it would Mark a revolution in global medicine a central innovation of recent centuries how can we overcome the blood shortage and what does this worm have to do with it this question was very nearly answered in the 1960s if these lab animals could survive with 80 artificial blood it would have meant medicine's Holy Grail had been found IC blood.
Blood shortage
would have become widely available in hospitals perfluorocarbons the Miracle Solution were infinitely reproducible and triggered a wave of euphoria in the medical community was immersed in the solution without suffocating just like blood the Emulsion could Supply the body with oxygen Japan began gearing up for mass production of the artificial blood substitute fluosol [Music] it can absorb and transport oxygen and it can remove carbon dioxide in emergency situations flu assault can be a life saver.
Blood shortage
True Blood appear to be solved a version of the flu of Soul story even made it into the popular Vampire series True Blood here too Japanese scientists pioneered the development of artificial blood now that the Japanese have perfected synthetic Bud which satisfies all of our nutritional needs there is no reason for anyone to fear us in the show the synthetic blood can easily be bought in supermarkets [Music] but in the real world the story didn't have a happy ending it's interesting that these perfluorocarbons damage the kidneys and other organs so the studies were discontinued foreign [Music] Ancient blood experiments 1994 the artificial blood was taken off the market but this was only one step in a series of experiments that date back centuries throughout history people have tried to reproduce or at least supplement blood experiments which were often pretty messy and frequently ended badly [Music] in ancient times wealthy Romans would drink the fresh blood of slain gladiators if that wasn't available they would make do with the blood of turtles and pigeons they believed it would give them special powers in the 17th century doctors tried using salt milk urine and even beer as a blood substitute their patients didn't survive you can see how much mystical spiritual meaning is attached to blood in Europe in the Middle Ages people believe that in a religious sense a lamb was innocent for giving someone a lamb blood transfusion couldn't do any harm Blood transfusions in 1818 James Blundell performed the first human-to-human blood transfusion but that didn't go too well either blood transfusions were high risk doctors did not yet know that not all blood is the same it was only when pathologist Carl lunchsteiner identified blood groups that transfusions became safe the most common blood groups are a b o and a b B donates blood to a there's a problem only a few millimeters of the wrong blood can cause an immune reaction or lead to the formation of antibodies as soon as you receive new cells in a new transfusion these antibodies will recognize these cells and eliminate them and you cannot prevent bleeding or in case of the erythrocytes these leads to molds and this might have severe consequences and even lead um to that Blood group systems and there are many other blood group systems potentially triggering complications [Music] there are the four blood types A B O and A B which is the blood group system but it's only one blood group system out of 34 systems and many many others [Music] there are hundreds of different antigens across the blood group systems anyone with a rare blood group will not find a suitable donor so quickly [Music] it can happen that even among 1000 or even 10 000 units of blood product there's no compatibility with the recipients ideally there would be a neutral blood group type that everyone can tolerate an artificial universal blood but what other properties would this substance need blood makes up eight percent of our body weight about five to seven liters in an adult driven by the heart it moves through our blood vessels the circulatory system at an average speed of four kilometers per hour laid out these would stretch about one hundred thousand kilometers and reach around the planet two and a half times blood is a means of Transport for a variety of substances because it is liquid it can deliver them anywhere in the body Blood suspension blood is what's called a suspension that is a liquid with solid components like for example the pulpy juice of a blood orange in the orange the blood is constituted by two fraction a liquid wine which is represented by the plasma that contains different molecules and factors important to regulate many many processes and cells like in the pulp of the orange and cells in blood are for example the erythrocytes which have a function in carrying oxygen the platelets to prevent bleeding and all cells that constitute the immune system and that defend us against the pathogen infections or cancer cells every cell and every particle in the blood has its own vital function to try and replace all of that at once is practically impossible Blood supply so if blood is too complex to Simply copy and its tasks can only be formed by real blood what options are left in France and Germany alone a total of 12 and a half thousand liters of blood are needed every day.
Blood shortage
Imagine filling a pool that's four meters long 2.4 meters wide and 1.3 meters deep with blood every day that's over 4.5 million liters a year or about as much blood circulating in 450 blue whales we had a nice old that is a continuous increase on demand of blood products due to to the increased frequencies of of disease that are associated with aging but the number of blood donors does not increase so there is an increased discrepance between the demand on the blood products and the available products to be transfused Transmission of infectious diseases there's a second problem in the 1970s and 80s thousands of people in Germany alone became infected with hepatitis and HIV through blood transfusions unfortunately blood is not only the means of Transport for immune cells oxygen and nutrients but also for pathogens which if the immune cells don't detect them can spread throughout the body theoretically transmission of infectious diseases can occur in practice however we are able to detect viruses for example by using PCR methods which many people became familiar with in the context of covid-19 so the risk of transmission of infectious diseases is now considerably reduced Blood components the risk of Contracting HIV through a blood transfusion is now 1 in 10 million highly unlikely in other words but with artificial blood the risk would be banished completely reproducing blood is too complex what other options are there or put it this way which parts of the blood do we need most and why awesome three components are derived from Whole blood first blood plasma the liquid component of blood shown here as orange juice and this is used to make medications medications such as clotting Factor concentrates for hemophiliacs blood platelets are important for blood clotting and wound healing cancer patients often have too few of them due to chemotherapy and the red blood cells which Supply our organs and tissue with oxygen Platelets what if scientists concentrated not on replicating whole blood but only specific components depending on which function is required would that quench our thirst for fresh blood [Applause] [Music] juice research focuses on the production of platelets this works like a popcorn machine so cells are taken from a person with blood group O and turned into a neutral stem cell the cells are then multiplied in a bioreactor where they develop into precursor cells called megakaryocytes that will eventually produce platelets these are then inserted into a living body just as corn kernels only become popcorn in a popcorn machine the blood platelets only develop in the body it works at least with mice just one hour after the precursor cells have been inserted into their bodies they begin producing lots of blood platelets we have seen that in vitro the the production of thrombocytes platelets from megacaryocytes is not very efficient but it is very efficient in the circulation so we always say that the the body is the best bioreactor Red blood cells the method results in the production of so much platelet popcorn that it could replace an entire unit of blood it hasn't been tested on humans yet but by 2027 the first human patients could be receiving transfusions of designer platelets research is also being conducted into artificial red blood cells in other words a substance for transporting oxygen hemoglobin which can bind oxygen atoms with the help of iron ions plays a key role each of these particles carries four oxygen passengers these are then transported through the body to supply each of the body's 30 trillion cells one advantage of lab-grown red blood cells for example is that we can produce a universal cell what we call a naked erythrocyte which no longer has any antigens on its surface and therefore doesn't trigger any rejection reactions to do this precursor cells that are still dormant are taken from the bone marrow for them to become full-fledged red blood cells they must be activated it's no easy task the problem is that the cell holds on to the nucleus it doesn't want to eject the nucleus how do you get a cell to do something it doesn't want to do think of it like this it's bathing in a nutrient solution a drug gives it the signal to multiply foreign once there are many of them the liquid is taken away then the cell stops multiplying and begins to evolve to do what makes it a red blood cell spit out the nucleus well Jesus for now this ejection of the nucleus is tricky in vitro because we don't fully understand this process in the bone marrow it's very complex complexes Hemoglobin given the difficulty of producing red blood cells in vitro that is artificially and outside a living organism wouldn't it make sense to look for them in a living organism [Music] [Music] and there may even be an organism whose hemoglobin is superior to ours elves I became interested in hemoglobin because I wanted to understand the mystery of lugworms how do they manage to breathe at low tide I was interested in their blood the hemoglobin to me this protein is magical because it's everywhere [Music] at low tide the lug worm which has gills has to hold its breath for hours yet still stay supplied with oxygen human hemoglobin is able to bind four oxygen molecules at once logorum hemoglobin is a multimeric molecule it is capable of binding 156 oxygen molecules at a time so a 40-fold increase in oxygen binding capacity between human and logarum hemoglobin not so much a cab with room for four but more of a passenger plane but what are we humans supposed to do with all this oxygen several tons of lug worms a year are now bred here in this facility concentrated hemoglobin is produced from their blood [Music] one vial is enough to replace an entire unit of blood provided by just 20 worms concentrated hemoglobin serves one main purpose to keep organs fresh we put this molecule this oxygen carrier in graft preservation solutions that means we can preserve organs much longer instead of four hours we can keep a heart safe for days a long death we could only keep for six hours we can now keep for 48 hours we can improve Logistics and keep organs alive for surgery the hemoglobin of the lug worm even has a youth preserving effect on some organs it can improve their condition but for now too little is known about possible side effects of lugworm blood transfusion [Music] there is a growing blood shortage so such a product would Mark a revolution Global medicine a central innovation of recent centuries natural human blood is so perfect and at the same time so complex that it's far beyond our capabilities to Simply duplicate it but perhaps we will soon be able to replace at least some parts of blood and possibly even improve on them I'm very optimistic in recent decades science has shown that if something succeeds in principle and all that's needed a more efficient processes then one day it will work I hope that in the next years at least these severely immunized patients can can profit from genetical engineered in vitro produced blood cells even if blood can't be copied a replacement for its individual functions could soon be available and perhaps a humble worm could allow us to meet the global demand for this essential fluid of life
