A question about blood donation.

[slapmatt]

Can someone answer me this question...?

How come, in a time when we can grow an ear on the back of a mouse, we can clone sheep and we can produce human body parts from stem cells - why can't blood be made in a laboratory, in giant, sterile vats?

The whole concept of blood donation just doesn't compute with me. Firstly the blood needs to be extracted, which is labour-intensive and costly. Then it needs to be screened - and I'm sure alot of it gets thrown away as people have all kind of un-Godly diseases they don't know about, then it need to be categorised, packaged and stored.

[bigandclever]

"The concept of making blood in a lab is not new, of course, and has even
been perfected by some companies. The difference is that other synthetic
bloods have always relied on at least one element based on actual
hemoglobin. Tsuchida's blood is a world first for having every part of
the compound manufactured synthetically in a lab."

www.japaninc.net/newsletters/?list=jin&issue=274

[slapmatt]

It doesn't have to be a synthetic blood though - Dolly the sheep isn't a "synthetic" sheep, she's a real sheep, but made in a laboratory.

[slapmatt]

Very interesting article though - thank you