Benjamin Plackett, Contributor
December 15, 2021
(Inside Science) -- Back in the 1600s, lacking an alternative, doctors tried transfusing milk and wine into the bloodstreams of their hemorrhaging patients. When that failed, they moved on to sheep's blood. It wasn't long before it became clear that these treatments were killing people, not saving them. Thankfully, we now know that human blood, donated by someone with a compatible blood type, is the way to go. That blood is then refined, separated into its components and screened for bloodborne diseases such as HIV.
Yet the current system is not perfect. Some countries' health care systems lack the infrastructure needed to safely collect, store and deliver blood to patients in need. Even in countries with those kinds of resources, there are communities with rare blood types for whom it can be challenging to find a match in the blood bank. Often people in these communities are ethnic minorities.
Simply put, severe bleeding requires medical care. The problem is especially acute in dangerous and remote locations such as war zones. That's why, following World War II, military scientists began to ask themselves if it might be possible to manufacture blood. Civilian researchers soon followed and so began the modern quest for artificial blood.
While scientists have not yet created a viable artificial blood product, they have achieved some advances....
