A team of scientists from the University of Bristol, England have managed to find a new technique of mass producing cultured red blood cells. In collaboration with the NHS Blood and Transplant, the team of scientists have created a scale manufacturing red blood cells.

Labs have already been able to grow red blood cells but not in a large-wide scale. There is a type of stem cell that manufactures red blood cells in the body, however, the cells burn out producing no more than 50 thousand red blood cells.

The research team of Bristol has created a new technique where they trap the stem cell in an early stage of growth. By entrapping the stem cell at an early stage, it can generate a stable line of indefinite growth of cells. Cells that can be triggered to become red blood cells.

This new method of culturing red blood cells is known as immortalizing when there is a large production of red blood cells during the early stages than if the stem cell was to burn out.

Researchers say there are many years ahead for manufactured cells to become available in a larger scale. Even though scientists have the biological resources to mass produce red blood cells, they still need the manufacturing technology for mass production of red blood cells.

Manufacturing red blood cells in a large-wide scale is a challenge in it of itself since about one trillion red blood cells are in one bag of blood. There is a difference between mass producing in a lab and producing for larger use such as for many patients. Another barrier to this challenge is the high costs of using cultured red blood cells.

Mass production of the cultured red blood cells will be able to provide a safe source for giving transfusions to patients with rare blood types and even compensate for the donation shortage. But that does not mean the traditional donation of blood is going to diminish, it just means there will be other means of getting blood supplies.

Later this year, there are plans to do safety trails with the cultured red blood cells. About Erica Zamora Reyes In my down time, I’m seen watching a movie or reading a book. Currently, I’ve been broadening my genres in the books I choose to read, as of now, it is memoir. As for movies, I’ll venture out but return to the same ones for the nostalgia feeling I crave. I love to draw, so I have my moments where I am constantly drawing or doodling the things and people I see.