All Blood Converted to Type O?

UnanimousCoward writes "The BBC is reporting that scientists claim to have discovered a technique to convert all blood into Type O with the discovery of an enzyme that can strip the A and B antigens. This has implications to transform the stored blood supply into transfusable blood for all. It does not address the RH negative issue, however."

Comments

Damn.

[Stanistani]

Now I can't sell my rare blood at a premium. It was my only worthwhile body fluid since they shut down the saliva banks.

Re:Damn.

[beckerist]

At least I can still sell my mighty swimmers!

Re:Damn.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, it's back to aluminium cans for you, then?

Re:Damn.

[asCii88]

What? Haven't you ever sold poop to Microsoft?
Oh sorry, it was buy from, not sell.

Re:Damn.

[ehrichweiss]

I know you're joking but last I recall, AB- blood isn't as much a commodity as you think it is. O+ blood is called the "universal donor" and AB- is the universal receiver and thusly O+ blood gets used a lot and as such guess which blood type is in the most demand...0+. They like to use AB- blood on people who have AB- but if it's not available they tend to take it from the O+ supply which leaves people with O+ blood at a loss.

Besides, in my state it's illegal to sell whole blood; you can sell plasma but not blood.

Re:Damn.

[alisson]

At least you didn't have mono holding you back :)

Re:Damn.

[lemon_dieter]

Native Americans universally bear Type "O" blood.
It is the white man who brought this unclean "A" or "B" antigen blood.

So, not only are Native Americans a good source for land, but also universally transfusable blood (with the exception of "RH -").

It's got me thinking....I am of the Blood Type "O":
Is alcoholism related to absence of such antigens? I'd really like to have something to blame for it.

Re:Damn.

[tdelaney]

That would be O- not O+. Negative RH can donate to positive RH, but not the other way around.

Re:Damn.

[QuesarVII]

AB+ is the universal recipient. O- is the universal donor. People with Rh positive blood can receive negative or positive. People with Rh neg blood can only receive Rh neg blood.

Re:Damn.

[SgtChaireBourne]

So if you were going to engineer a soldier caste, you'd want them to run on AB+ as much as possible.

Re:Damn.

[ehrichweiss]

Go figure I have it backward(though so do every one of my friends that I asked). Though now I should check my blood type cause I'm 100% positive I was told I'd be screwed in case of a shortage of any sort..

individuality

[ncohafmuta]

great, next thing you know, they'll want us to all wear the same clothes.

"the individuality thing is over"

-Tony

Re:individuality

[UnknowingFool]

I take it that you didn't RTFA. The article says nothing about converting the blood in your body to O. The article was all about converted donated, stored blood to type O, the universal donor blood. This breakthrough (if found to be safe and effective) means that type specific donations could be converted and thus increases the supply of available blood. In a shortage now, some patients don't get the blood they need because the only available types are not compatible. This will help mitigate that problem. Of course there will always be a need for type-specific blood but for emergency transfusions, this could save lives.

Re:individuality

[njchick]

It's more like making donated clothes fit everyone.

Re:individuality

[UnanimousCoward]

RTFA? WTF??? My original title for the post was "Possibly convert all transfusion blood Type O" so he/she wouldn't have to RTFA...

Uh oh...

[Spudtrooper]

The Japanese are totally gonna freak out...

Re:Uh oh...

[treckle]

Heh. All your personality are belong to us.

Re:Uh oh...

[Pope]

Good grief!

All the more reason to round up the superstitious idiots in the world and turn them into an organ bank.

Re:Uh oh...

[maxume]

I foresee a problem, sometimes when you get an organ transplant, you start thinking and acting like the person you got the organ from.

Re:Uh oh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm a Japanese from /.jp.

As you know, many Japanese ask us about our blood type. I always reply my blood type is A, and almost all people are convinced of my answer.

BUT, my blood type is O. ;-)

Re:Uh oh...

[jrumney]

When Koreans ask, I reply that my blood type is OB. Sometimes they even get the joke.

Re:Uh oh...

[dylan_-]

by Pope (17780) ...
All the more reason to round up the superstitious idiots in the world and turn them into an organ bank.
--
"Virii" isn't a word, you frigging morons.

You know, I don't think you're really the Pope at all...

It had to be said

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our new A and B antigen free overlords.

Oh yeah, first ever first post for me.

That's great until...

[Anonymous Coward]

We find that new disease that only destroys type O blood.

Re:That's great until...

[AKAImBatman]

Until we find that new disease that only destroys type O blood.

I wouldn't worry about it. This is only for Type-O transfusions. Since a transfusion doesn't change your blood type (it just supplements your existing plasma until your body can manufacture sufficient replacement quantities), you won't have to worry about those "new diseases". Unless you're normally O-negative, that is...

Damn

[Lifyre]

It means I can't brag about my blood being the rarest around anymore... My AB- negative blood will be no better than the weak sauce O- blood... Not 1337 Not 1337 at all...

Re:Damn

[The_mad_linguist]

Better get yourself tested for some of the more obscure ones, like the Duffy antigen.

Adolescent humor

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but can they get out the cooties?

Re:Adolescent humor

[glittalogik]

No, but with enough Type O Negative they'll be converted into goth-cooties.

No RH, no problem... for me.

[el americano]

It does not address the RH negative issue, however

OK, so not everyone would be a universal recipient, but most people would be. 85% of the US population (apologies to the international community.

Re:No RH, no problem... for me.

[AndersOSU]

Eh, who cares anyway?

Sincerely,
Mr. AB+

Re:No RH, no problem... for me.

[pluther]

I kinda do.

Thanks,
Mr. O-

O negative, eh?

[arthurh3535]

While I won't mind the ability of people to donate to me, the benefit is actually pretty amazing. O Negative is the preferred donor type, as (IIRC) anyone can accept it, but no other blood type works for us poor O Neg's.

So this technology could literally save my life!

Re:O negative, eh?

[NeilTheStupidHead]

This is a fantastic benefit for all blood types (except maybe AB+). Persons with Rh -ve blood make up about 15-20% of the population (at least in most European and North American countries, from what I can remember) so giving those people the full benefit of that 15% of donated blood will save many lives. As an AB+ myself, I know my blood is less sought after at donor clinics (to the point where one of the nurses suggested I stick to giving plasma only) so this make my blood more 'viable' as a donation. If they can filter out the Rhesus antigens as well, you've got universal blood. The time saved in testing injured patients alone to make sure that the right type of blood is given will save thousands of lives (I know it only takes a few seconds to do the test, but you've got to collect blood and take it to the lab and that takes a few minutes which some people may not have).

Re:O negative, eh?

[kenrick]

O Negative is the preferred donor type, as (IIRC) anyone can accept it, but no other blood type works for us poor O Neg's. O Rhesus +ve will work for O negs once. You're born with ABO antibodies but for all other antigens (including Rhesus antigen), you need an initial exposure to trigger antibody development. Therefore, anyone who's Rhesus negative can receive _one_ transfusion of Rhesus positive blood (providing its ABO crossmatched) without major risk of reaction. It's exceedingly bad practice to do this, but can be lifesaving in an emergency (i.e. no other Rhesus negative blood around).

Re:O negative, eh?

[Orange Crush]

O Rhesus +ve will work for O negs once.

The situation would have to be pretty dire for that to be seriously considered. There's no good way to tell that a patient has *never* received incompatible blood before--there might've been an unnoticed slip-up in the past that could make this idea fatal.

Re:O negative, eh?

[link-error]

When I donated blood a little while back, they informed me that I am also CMV- which means I can also donate to infants. I had never heard of that before, but I guess its pretty rare to be O- and CMV-.

Of course, there probably aren't as many of those, and they don't need that much blood :)

Re:O negative, eh?

[trianglman]

The time saved in testing injured patients alone to make sure that the right type of blood is given will save thousands of lives (I know it only takes a few seconds to do the test, but you've got to collect blood and take it to the lab and that takes a few minutes which some people may not have).

This is true, but, except in the most extreme of shortages, this isn't an issue. Most hospitals, in an emergency will simply transfuse a person with O+ blood (O- for women of child bearing age). While giving an O- patient O+ blood can have side effects, they are usually minor when it is only one pint, especially compared to imminent death. This most often only introduces new antigens that have to be dealt with on future transfusions and won't kill the patient. In general its important to avoid this, as there can be serious allergic reactions, but if its death or transfusion, a doctor will sign off on an emergency O transfusion. It can have serious repercussions on an unborn fetus, which is why women of a certain age are only given O- in these circumstances.

Credentials: Worked in a hospital blood bank for 3 years and another blood bank later for about the same.

Re:O negative, eh?

[senrable]

CMV is Cytomegalovirus and is present in 50-85% of adults by the age of 40. In non immunocompromised adults, the virus is latent, but in infants or immunocompromised individuals (organ transplant recipients, chemotherapy patients, pregnant mothers, etc.) it presents a serious risk.

Please donate, you would be surprised at how many infants need blood transfusions (as well as many transplant recipients).

Re:O negative, eh?

[Atlantis-Rising]

Wouldn't you be able to check their blood for antibodies?

'Course, come to think of it, that'd probably take longer than getting your hands on the right blood...

Re:O negative, eh?

[sokoban]

You could probably do that. And it wouldn't take very long if you did an ELISA since the rh factor is pretty well known and it would be easy to make the antigens.

Re:O negative, eh?

[RobertLTux]

when you only have 0.25 liters of blood total (/. reader have about 5 liters) you don't have all that much to loose.

this is one of those things that Think Of The Children is very much justified

Re:O negative, eh?

[Orange Crush]

I was imagining the context of a truly dire emergency--i.e. shipboard and line-of-fire medical facilities. Typing blood is pretty quick and easy, not sure how readily such circumstances could definitively test for other antibodies unless there was some obvious reaction that could be done with a sample of patient blood before administering the donor blood.

Re:O negative, eh?

[martinX]

Crossmatch in 15 minutes. Easy peasy and routine for ALL blood recipients. If 15 minutes is too long, give albumin to keep up the volume until then. If that doesn't work, you're screwed any way you look at it.

Re:O negative, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Both my daughters needed transfusion after being induced early due to anti-e incompatability. It would be interesting to see if this enzyme solves that as otherwise there are no solutions other than deliver early (earlier each affected pregnancy) and deal with the aneamia/jaundice out of the mother.

At least now they can use doppler radar sounding of the cranial medial artery to determine Hm levels in the foetal blood rather than needing to do cordocentesis (sp?) every 2 weeks like that had to do with the first.

Nanbots

[dlhm]

I think 7 did this in an episode years ago.. either way, i'm bummed, now i can't sell my blood for bandwidth.

Bacterial names

[HTH NE1]

After a search of 2,500 fungi and bacteria the researchers discovered two bacteria - Elizabethkingia meningosepticum and Bacterioides fragilis - which contained potentially useful enzymes.

Is it just me, or does anyone else not like the name Elizabethkingia meningosepticum? I don't have a problem with the Elizabethkingia, but the meningosepticum sounds bad, making me think Elizabeth King was not the discoverer but rather the Patient Zero.

Why can't they be more like astronomers who call things as they see them, like how spots on the sun are called "sunspots"?

Re:Bacterial names

[Stanistani]

No.
It's named after a scientist who first described this type of bacteria.
"Elizabethkingia Kim et al. 2005, gen. nov.
Type species: Elizabethkingia meningoseptica (King 1959) Kim et al. 2005.
Etymology: N.L. fem. n. Elizabethkingia, in honour of Elizabeth O. King, who first described bacteria associated with infant meningitis, notably [Flavobacterium] meningosepticum in 1959."

Re:Bacterial names

[ColdWetDog]

Why can't they be more like astronomers who call things as they see them, like how spots on the sun are called "sunspots"?

Because biologists like to confuse people and sound important.

Bandying about drisophila melonagaster sounds smarter than saying fruit fly. But all it really means is "black bellied dew sucker". Now that's intellectual!

Re:Bacterial names

[bcattwoo]

Why can't they be more like astronomers who call things as they see them, like how spots on the sun are called "sunspots"? Because naming thousands of species of bacteria microscopius blobbium wouldn't be very useful?

Re:Bacterial names

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, names are often descriptive... but only to people with a good grasp of Latin.

Re:Bacterial names

[RobertLTux]

and it also solves the problem of deciding which language to use (latin is a "dead" language so its stable and everybody with a PHD [subtype medical/biological] knows latin
or can look its up).

Re:Bacterial names

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, it's not named after Queen Elizabeth?

Synthetic Blood

[gears6556]

I'm actually surprised that we haven't developed synthetic blood before now. We've known about blood types for 100 years and I keep expecting to see a machine producing blood cells in the news any day now.

Provided with the proper nutrients couldn't we keep a cell alive and dividing to have an unlimited supply?

Something I didn't know before that I learned from the article: Anyone can receive type O blood without risk.

Great post!

Re:Synthetic Blood

[networkBoy]

Not entirely, there is such a thing as graft Vs host, whereby if the recipient receives too much blood the donor blood can attack the person's body. Yes you can strip the white cells, but this is slow and costly, the former prohibits doing it at time of need, the latter from doing it "just in case". Not normally an issue except when massive bleeding due to extreme trauma or bleeding disorder are present as below.

As the father of a type O son with hemophilia this is awesome news. Opens up a much wider source of blood should the worst happen, especially since my wife and I are neither type O, and my father in law, while type O is also hemophilic.
-nB

Re:Synthetic Blood

[jimstapleton]

blood is a horribly complex substance.

In labs, there are several growth mediums made from cow blood (remove the red blood cells as well as several other factors). They can't be properly synthesized because of how complex it is, and that's even after the most complex stuff is removed.

It's not suprising at all that we can't synthesize it, but it's nice that we can "produce" type O from other types.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Firethorn]

Something I didn't know before that I learned from the article: Anyone can receive type O blood without risk

I got that from junior high biology. Actual issues are more complicated when you get in deep, of course. One oddball is that you can usually survive 1 non-matching transfusion, even if it's incompatible. After that your immune system is 'primed', much like for a vaccination, and will attack a second transfusion with extreme prejudice, likely resulting in your death.

And we are testing at least one blood substitute. The last one I read about(sorry, dead tree article), was intended for use in ambulances, which can't normally carry blood. Unfortuantly, it actually performed worse than saline IV's when it came to patient survival.

As for simply cloning a blood supply, it's difficult because you'd have to clone marrow, as blood cells no longer have a nucleous. Not insurmountable at this point, but currently unable to compete with donated blood.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[WhyDoYouWantToKnow]

There have been attempts to synthesize RBC's (red blood cells). The linked article discuses a current synthetic blood product. While there are many advantages, there are still a number of issues to overcome before this becomes a viable alternative to RBC transfusions.

http://biomed.brown.edu/Courses/BI108/BI108_2005_G roups/10/webpages/HBOClink.htm

Re:Synthetic Blood

[jimstapleton]

Actually, only red blood cells lack a nucleus, the rest of the blood cells have them. Also there are three locations of blood cell development - marrow, liver, and I think spleen or pancreas (may be wrong on both counts in the last one). But I don't remember which cells have which parts of the development where. It's been a while since I've studied that.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Doctor Memory]

There was that stuff they had back in the 70s, can't remember the name any more. It was a form of liquid Teflon, I remember they showed a rat with a weight tied to one leg being dropped in a beaker full of the stuff (after it had been oxygenated) and apparently it stayed in there for several minutes and suffered no ill effects afterwards.

One problem with the synthetic blood is that it wasn't as efficient at oxygen transfer as real blood, and ISTR there were some issues with the body's ability to excrete it (either it didn't do it well, so the stuff stayed in your bloodstream until it was removed, or the body found it extremely easy to filter out, so it didn't stay around long).

Re:Synthetic Blood

[milamber3]

First off, it's the red blood cells that are important in the majority of transfusions so that is why the lack of a nucleus is pointed out by the gp post. Secondly, blood cells are created in the marrow so I'm not sure what your point is about development. Some blood cells do mature in other places (e.g. thymus and spleen) but you're not going to be getting any blood if you try to grow new cells out of a tissue besides the marrow.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Anonymous Coward]

You are such a pessimist. Is your blood type B-negative?

Re:Synthetic Blood

[jimstapleton]

No, but I didn't say the marrow wan't necessary.

What I said is that you may not get new blood cells if you use JUST marrow either.

Try reading comprehension, it helps a lot.

Also, while red blood cells are the most important in most transfusions, they are not the only relevant factor.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[norton_I]

Clinical trials recently finished for Polyheme by Northfield Labs, which takes expired blood and polymerizes the hemoglobin to make a long lasting, oxygen carying substitute for saline, which is currently used in amulences to maintain blood pressure but does not carry oxygen. It also showed the potential for a superiority to blood in massive trauma situations since it avoids the immune response.

Unfortunately, the initial reports from the trials failed to show even non-inferiority over saline, though there were multiple issues of coding errors by the 3rd party data analysis company, and they are in the process of reviewing the database to see if their conclusions were correct.

The work is very hard since you have to get FDA approval to do non-consent trials of an experimental procedure.

There are other procedures under development that use non-human blood as the hemoglobin source, but they are not to testing phases yet, and there are some additional problems that need to be solved to avoid rejection in those cases.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[yabos]

Actually people have tried already http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/reporter/index.html?I D=224 for one example.
I remember reading about a synthetic blood that was being tested on the public in I believe some parts of New York through the ambulances. You also didn't have any choice if you wanted this synthetic blood either, you just got it or not depending on your luck.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluosol You're welcome.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[ColdWetDog]

I'm actually surprised that we haven't developed synthetic blood before now

It's been tried various times (Google is your friend if you're so inclined). Doesn't seem to work for humans, there is a commercial product for dogs that isn't terribly expensive (about $80 per unit).

Re:Synthetic Blood

[tpjunkie]

That was a liquid chlorocarbon, which polymerized can be used to create teflon and other useful plastics. It has been well known for some time that these solutions can hold enough oxygen to be viable breathing solutions for applications like deep sea diving. However, that is in no way similar to a blood substitute. The problems with synthetic blood substitutes are myriad, including but not limited to the difficulties of creating a substance that can function as oxygen donor and CO2 recipient in the same manner as hemoglobin (which achieves this via an affinity curve that varies with pH) while tending to not be immediately filtered out by the kidneys or induce clotting.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Captain Nitpick]

There was that stuff they had back in the 70s, can't remember the name any more. It was a form of liquid Teflon, I remember they showed a rat with a weight tied to one leg being dropped in a beaker full of the stuff (after it had been oxygenated) and apparently it stayed in there for several minutes and suffered no ill effects afterwards.

Oxygenated perfluorocarbons. For those interested in seeing it in action, watch The Abyss. The scene with the rat being submerged in the stuff was not a special effect.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[X0563511]

The problem is that a blood cell does not have a nucleus and cannot multiply - they are specialized cells...

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Firethorn]

As milamber3 said, it's the red blood cells they need, followed by platelets. If they could remove everything else, leaving a saline/glucose solution with rbc and platelets, they'd likely do it. Heck, there's situations where they'd want to remove the platelets as well.

In an emergency situation you wouldn't be worried about the nutritional substances. There it's about keeping oxygen flow up until they get to the hospital. Heck, with a working artificial blood substitute if that means they gotta run 5 gallons through you, they can do it.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[brarrr]

Check out a company called Northfield Labs (http://www.northfieldlabs.com/) as they're attempting to make a synthetic blood replacement for use in trauma treatment.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Anonymous Coward]

Provided with the proper nutrients couldn't we keep a cell alive and dividing to have an unlimited supply?

Red blood cells and platelets lie in the border lands between alive and dead. They do not have their own nucleus, and so cannot reproduce nor repair their own proteins. They are produced by budding off of bone marrow cells. They do have the enzymes and chemicals to keep a few metabolic maintenance processes going for a while: red blood cells for a few months, platelets for about a week. (But don't complain. They cannot become cancerous or amplify a viral infection, so there are benefits.)

So to grow blood in culture, you have to make working marrow. That turns out to be difficult. There is also the problem of how you would feed the blood-producing culture: animal and microbial sources have "alien" sugars that will tend to provoke a massive immune response in the recipient, while a fully synthetic culture medium doesn't exist and would be insanely expensive.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[empaler]

I've always held that being blood type AB is probably one of the biggest fortunes of my life. Of course, like all other privileges, it should be shared, and even though I can get tap water in my veins and my body won't reject it, I donate (note: not sell) willingly and regularly to help others. In the end, if they start running low, it won't affect me if I get run down in that time, but that'd just mean I'd be taking blood that could help others.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[chooks]

Actually graft vs. host is due to lymphocytes of the donor attacking the cells of the recipient and does not directly have to do with blood volume (although obviously, the more blood you get, the more foreign lymphocytes you will get). In most people this is not a big deal b/c the immune system of the recipient can handle the foreign lymphocytes appropriately. However in immunodeficient individuals (or young people with underdeveloped immune systems) this is not good, since they do not have the ability to protect themselves against the donor immune cells.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Cedric Tsui]

Not so much synthetic blood as a synthetic hemoglobin.

The problem is that anything that can bond to oxygen will breakdown to form toxic dimers if it isn't isolated by something like the cell walls of a red blood cell.

There was one which basically had a glue to bond clumps of synthetic hemoglobin together which reached clinical trials, but it caused high mortality rates for unknown reasons, so we're back to regular O blood.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[messner_007]

"It's not suprising at all that we can't synthesize it," Of course we can : http://www.sybd.com/sybdproduct.php We don't actually synthesize the blood, we synthesize the replacement for the blood. But this stuff is expensive and not quite perfect yet ...

Re:Synthetic Blood

[StikyPad]

I'm actually surprised that we haven't developed synthetic blood before now.

Like this?

Also, the only benefit of having O- blood is a regular phone call from the Red Cross begging for a donation. Although you may not necessarily see that as a benefit, depending on your particular level of lonliness.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Heymdall]

I fail to see what's so important about it... I mean about 30-40% of people according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type have 0 blood type anyway so if a given national (or whatever) blood collecting system works, getting O blood type shouldn't really be all that hard... At least for O+, O- being a completly different story.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Anonymous Coward]

>One oddball is that you can usually survive 1 non-matching transfusion, even if it's incompatible.

Not if the incompatibility is of the ABO variety. For some odd reason, we develop powerful antibodies to the blood group antigens we lack in the ABO system, e.g. a Group A person will develop anti-B, Group B develops anti-A and Group O develops both anti-A and anti-B, all without prior exposure. The nature of these naturally occurring antibodies is such that a transfusion of incompatible blood will immediately result in a haemolytic transfusion reaction, three words you don't want the doctors whispering around you...

There is no anti-O antibodies because the A and B proteins are derived from the O protein, so A and B people also have O on their red cells.

(OK, there is the rare Bombay blood group but if I mention that, people will start making "Calling Dr Bombay" jokes.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hh_antigen_system

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Explodicle]

Good thinking! Let us know when you're done.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Thwaites]

Just an FYI ...

You're correct about the marrow and liver creating RBC's. The other organ is the spleen (as you mentioned); however, the spleen only creates RBC's (haematopoeisis) up until around the 5th or 6th month of gestation. After that, the spleen behaves like an recycling plant, returning the components of RBCs undergoing apoptosis (controlled cell death) to the body.

The more you know!

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Firethorn]

The opposite, actually...

A Pos.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[asdfx]

Synthetic Blood: http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/9e367f36fca9e 010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
It does not act like blood, but it carries oxygen more efficiently than blood.

Aging has to do with programmed cell death, if I recall correctly. Also, i believe most new blood cells come from the bone marrow; so, just having one red blood cell and letting it reproduce in solution seems much too simplified.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Oktober Sunset]

Provided with the proper nutrients couldn't we keep a cell alive and dividing to have an unlimited supply?

Red blood cells can't divide because they have no nuclei.

Re:Synthetic Blood

[Chryana]

Relax. All the GP said was that there's more to creating blood than just having the bone marrow. No need to get cross over this. Nothing he said was actually inaccurate or flat wrong, and I thought personally that what he said was interesting, and a useful contribution to the discussion. Politely pointing out that you could do blood transplants with only red blood cells created from the blood marrow would have been sufficient to get your point across. Reread your own post, and read again the GP, I'm sure you'll agree :).

Re:Synthetic Blood

[dfn_deux]

I recall reading an article in a magazine a few years back which was talking about the research being done into using Perflurocarbon based blood replacement. My memory of the article is hazy, but iirc there was some mention of some human trials being done in the poorer parts of Africa where the demand for blood cannot be met due to the lack of refrigeration and the abundance of disease in the population.

dem Jap's is kuh-RAZY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but apparently according to this theory Rick James is conservative, Elvis Presley was athletic and Marilyn Monroe is cool, controlled, and rational. I'm not thinking this is really going to mess with the accuracy, though they hit the nail on the head with Jackie Chan being unforgiving! I wonder what blood type Chuck Norris has?

Re:dem Jap's is kuh-RAZY!

[Spudtrooper]

I wonder what blood type Chuck Norris has?

Diesel.

Re:dem Jap's is kuh-RAZY!

[Anonymous Coward]

Chuck Norris doesn't have blood. Blood has Chuck Norris.

Re:dem Jap's is kuh-RAZY!

[Dik Zak]

I wonder what blood type Chuck Norris has? Yeah, they tried testing it once, but they couldn't find a needle capable of piercing his skin.

Re:dem Jap's is kuh-RAZY!

[wombert]

Diesel.

You mean, as in "Vin"?

Re:dem Jap's is kuh-RAZY!

[Anonymous Coward]

+6, Best Comment Ever Made on Slashdot

Re:dem Jap's is kuh-RAZY!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what blood type Chuck Norris has?

Technically gods have "ichor", not blood. If Chuck Norris ever needs blood instead, rest assured he will have no problem extracting it from the nearest available source.

Re:dem Jap's is kuh-RAZY!

[Maxmin]

>> I wonder what blood type Chuck Norris has?
>
>
> Diesel.

Nope, pure neutronium.

Blood made suitable for all

[sas-dot]

Here more info from Nature

Scientists have discovered enzymes that can efficiently convert blood groups A, B and AB into the 'universal' O group -- which can be given to anyone but is always in short supply.

The two novel glycosidase enzymes were identified in bacteria by an international team led by Henrik Clausen of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. The researchers hope that the enzymes will both improve the erratic supplies of blood around the world, and also the safety of transfusions. Clinical trials to test the safety and effectiveness of their converted blood are being planned.

The ABO blood-type system is based on the presence or absence of the sugar-based antigens 'A' and 'B' on red blood cells. Type O blood cells have neither A nor B antigens, so may be safely transfused into anyone. But types A, B and AB blood do, and cause life-threatening immune reactions if they are given to patients with a different blood group. The bacterial glycosidase enzymes strip these antigens away from A, B and AB blood.

The idea of such antigen-stripping goes back to the early 1980s, with the discovery of an enzyme in coffee beans that removes B antigens from red blood cells1. Early-stage clinical trials showed that the converted blood could be safely transfused into individuals of different blood groups; no traces of enzyme or antigen remained to cause reactions2. But the enzyme reaction was far too inefficient to make large-scale conversion practical.

Clausen's team screened 2,500 extracts from different bacteria and fungi for their ability to cleave off A and B antigens. The newly discovered bacterial 'B' enzyme is nearly 1,000 times more efficient then the coffee-bean B enzyme -- the additional discovery of an enzyme to remove A antigens means that all blood types can now be converted. The work is reported in Nature Biotechnology3.
(snip)

Re:Blood made suitable for all

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it interesting that the Nature.com article mentioned in the parent has a publication date of April 1......

Re:Blood made suitable for all

[sokoban]

I doubt this is any sort of April Fools joke though.

Using a bacterial enzyme to cleave the terminal sugars from the A and B type antigen totally makes sense. You're just cleaving an alpha 1-3 bond between either N-acetylgalactosamine or galactose and galactose. Bacteria commonly have enzymes to digest alpha bonds, so it would only be a matter of trial and error to find the right enzyme.

Blood Banks

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, there goes my excuse for not giving blood. The blood of a universal receiver (AB+) doesn't have much value to anyone other than a universal receiver (I can take blood from anyone, but only 2-3% of the population actually wants my blood.) The blood bank was only mildly interested in my blood in the past, but now they will be all over me.

Duh

[Scott Lockwood]

It does not address the RH negative issue, however.

Duh. Rh factor is a combination of several different genes. Blood type isn't controlled by those.

Also, it should be noted that, unlike what several of the replies thus far seem to think, this won't change your blood type - it will only alter blood that has already been removed from the body for future transfusion. Your body will still produce blood of whatever type you normally produce. Also, it basically has the added implication of making more than just O neg the universal donor. After all, if I can 'strip' A, and B off of cells, then A neg, B neg, and AB neg also become universal donors.

Re:Duh

[jgc7]

To add...
About 8% of the population is O-, and another 10% are one of A-, B-, AB-. O- is the only type of blood you can give a patient without know his blood type, so this would approximately double the supply of blood available for Emergency situations. There really isn't a shortage of any other blood type. O+ is one of the most common blood types (IIRC ~40% of the population is O+). Stripping the Rh factor, would actually be more useful because you could then convert the very common O+ to O-.

I am O-

[jlowery]

All bow before me, The Universal Donor!

Re:I am O-

[kusanagi374]

Lucky us that can say that. I don't think the AB+ guys would happily say "All bow before me, the Universal Receiver!"

Re:I am O-

[Luyseyal]

Donor? Receiver? Oh no, I think I know a certain goat-related website that fits this thread...

-l

Re:I am O-

[Anonymous Coward]

>> All bow before me, The Universal Donor!

I, for one, welcome our new O- overlords!

Re:I am O-

[Anonymous Coward]

The Universal Donor

Excellent! I'll have a lung and two kidneys, please...

Awesome

[192939495969798999]

Does it work on blood supplies like what the Red Cross maintains? A lot more people could donate and make a quick buck.

Re:Awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't "make a quick buck" by giving blood to the Red Cross.

That's why it's called a blood donation.

Re:Awesome

[rahvin112]

The only thing you get from the Red Cross when giving blood is a cookie and some OJ. The RedCross is a non-profit.

Re:Awesome

[maxume]

I got frustrated... ...cause it took awhile.

I'm still going to go again though.

I pictured this being used by a supervillain...

[SolemnLord]

And the thought sent a chill through my blood. Oh no.

Type O Negative, anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pete Steele's gonna be a happy man, then.

Blood sales

[SlashDev]

are going to soar and blood prices drop because of over stock.

More than ABO and RhD blood groups

[kenrick]

Although ABO and RhD grouping systems are the most well-known and the most important, there are a myriad of other blood groups (about 29 last time I checked) that are of relevance when it comes to crossmatching blood for a patient.

Whilst this potentially is a great step forward, as always with biomedical headlines, it's not the be-all and end-all.

Re:More than ABO and RhD blood groups

[k31bang]

Thats the first think i thought about as well. Here is a chart that shows some of them.

ANDF?

[Doctor Memory]

So will this converted blood be referred to as being in Antigen-Neutral Distribution Format?

Re:ANDF?

[argent]

ANDF is so last century. They'll jump straight to the .NET framework with Blood# (since they have to track sharps anyway).

Fuzzy Types

[Doc Ruby]

There are more blood factors than just the ABO and Rh factors that contribute to defining exclusive immunological blood types, so this extremely valuable process is not a panacea.

Bad News for Vamps

[travdaddy]

Bad news for Vampires, Type A is the tastiest. So much for just going to the blood bank for meals!

T-Negative

[SevenHands]

However, can the conversion between T-Negative and Type O be completed?

Re:T-Negative

[Anonymous Coward]

"However, can the conversion between T-Negative and Type O be completed?"

Not until we learn how to transmute copper to iron.

In the Meantime

[necro81]

Naturally, before this sees widespread clinical use, it'll have to go through a very stringent set of studies, tests, trials, and approvals. So, it may well be 5-10 years before this sees even pilot-program use. Even once in place, this process won't lessen the demand for blood of all types, merely make the blood supply more available.

So, in the meantime, everyone who is able should at least consider donating blood. It is fast, easy, and (nearly) painless. Many may object to the exclusion criteria used by the Red Cross and other organizations, but the overwhelming majority of eligible donors simply do not give. Chances are good that, at some point in your life, you too will need a blood transfusion.

Find a blood drive near you.

Re:In the Meantime

[Overzeetop]

Acatully, I stopped giving blood regularly about 10 years ago. I used to give every two months until I had some blood work done for a physical that revealed I was suffering from low ferritin levels (stored iron, as I understood it). The doctor recommended several tests, but after hearing that I gave blood regularly sugessted that I stop for 6-8 months and get re-tested. My ferritin levels came back to normal. I've given very sproadically since then.

BTW - does anyone know if there is a publically availble (and layman-readable) list of medications which would cause your blood to be rejected? I usually try to schedule when I've not been taking anything for at least 2 weeks, but as one grows older the periods of time when I'm (a) available and (b) haven't taken a single medication for 2 weeks or more prior are starting to occur with lower frequency.

It's not that I mind going, but if I'm going to spend an hour and a half of my time, I'd rather not have some techician decide later that my bag goes in the trash 'cause I had heartburn last week.

Re:In the Meantime

[compro01]

already sold. I've been donating regularly for a bit more than 2 years now. and I'm pretty useful, as I'm the semi-universal type (O+).

though i do think that their exclusion criteria need adjustment. i have not seen any relevant evidence that being homosexual creates any statistically significant increase in the risk of contracting AIDS or any other blood-transmittable STD and they're excluding a moderate number of donors from the pool. the "travel to Britain" part also strikes me as silly, as we have BSE here too.

they also might want to look through their exclusion lists and allow those with proven false positives to donate again. my aunt got a false positive on the hep c test nearly 15 years ago, and all further tests have repeatedly shown as negative, but she is unable to donate due to that one aberration.

Re:In the Meantime

[Beardo the Bearded]

Yes, the clinics have lists of medications and vaccinations that have a waiting period. It's a reasonably exhaustive list.

Don't worry about what's going to happen to the blood after you're done with it. After all, you're done with it. If it's suitable for use as blood, it will go to someone who might otherwise have bled to death. If it's not suitable in its current form, it may have the plasma removed and used, or it might go to some other technician to run some tests. (Like whether or not this enzyme can be used to strip the antigens out and convert the donation to Type O.)

Once, my wife had trouble giving blood and only gave a small (1/2) donation. They said - and this is the part you'll remember - "That's okay, dear. It's enough for a child."

Re:In the Meantime

[Red Flayer]

Many may object to the exclusion criteria used by the Red Cross and other organizations

I was excluded from giving blood because I have an elevated level of a liver enzyme in the blood that is symptomatic of Hepatitis. I don't have hepatitis; the elevated enzyme level is genetic, and is passed to the males in my family. Still, with full documentation of this, as well as multiple negative Hep tests, I was not allowed to give blood until several years ago.

The notice I received stated that due to a severe, long-term shortage of blood reserves, they were relaxing the donor standards, and I would be allowed to donate. I now do so regularly.

My point? We need the blood. If the banks are forced to loosen donor standards, it's a bad sign.

Thank you for posting those links, hopefully a lot of non-donors will become donors.

Any thought on starting a Slashdot blood drive?

Re:In the Meantime

[Epi-man]

Acatully, I stopped giving blood regularly about 10 years ago. I used to give every two months until I had some blood work done for a physical that revealed I was suffering from low ferritin levels (stored iron, as I understood it). The doctor recommended several tests, but after hearing that I gave blood regularly sugessted that I stop for 6-8 months and get re-tested. My ferritin levels came back to normal. I've given very sproadically since then.

I had the exact same thing happen to me, wife convinced me to have a physical since I hadn't been to the doctor in ~5 years, and then was for rotator cuff surgery. My last physical was 10 years prior for work. Anyway, I was recommended to start taking a multi-vitamin with iron supplement. This has brought my ferritin levels back up and am now allowed to donate again. The only reason I take the supplements is so I can donate, I only wish others took donating so seriously.

Re:In the Meantime

[Overzeetop]

Actually, my local donation center has the option of giving two units of plasma. I haven't gone since they introduced it (6 maybe 8 months ago). Back in the day they didn't have lists available for perusal. I hadn't realized - never really gave it the thought - that the blood could be used for clinical testing should it prove not suitable for transfustion; that's a reasonable use in its own right. The chunk out of my day is pretty valuable (probabaly close to $250 in lost income when all is said and done). I don't worry about giving it away for a good purpose, I just don't want to waste it (and the time and materials of the RC) because someone is afraid of "offending" me by not letting me donate. (They used to have a station where you could "anonymously" indicate your blood was dangerous, but still save face by "donating")

Good call on the technician for your wife's donation. Don't know if that's actually true (I'm am fully ignornant of the process once the blood leaves my arm), but that should be enough to get just about any parent of a small child back to the center in 2 months. For those without children, you can be as sympathetic as you like but you'll never really feel that kind of comment until you have one.

Re:In the Meantime

[DavidTC]

That's something people don't consider. Blood is not just useful to put in people.

Not only can they can strip out the cell and turn it into plasma, but I'm sure this specific research, for example, was done with expired and unneeded donated blood. As is many other useful research.

So even if it doesn't go directly to help someone, it could instead end up in a lab where they invent a way to make blood donation more useful overall, or where they examine how to get the immune system to detect cancerous cells loose in the bloodstream, or who knows what.

Re:In the Meantime

[evilviper]

So, in the meantime, everyone who is able should at least consider donating blood. It is fast, easy, and (nearly) painless.

I'll consider donating blood, when doctors and hospitals consider giving blood transfusions at cost...

Have you ever donated to a canned-food drive, so that the charity organization could SELL that donated food to the poor at REDUCED COST?

If doctors/hospitals would like to continue to make a profit on my blood donation, so would I... If they offered even a trivial amount of cash, just $5 per pint, the Red Cross would practically have lines of people outside their facilities.

Re:In the Meantime

[compro01]

at my clinic, they have an extensive list of practically every medication that exists and if it invalidates a donor. it's a big 3" 3-ring binder.

for common stuff, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, ASA, it has to be 3 days since you've taken them.

any medication that it specifically blood-borne (blood pressure, cholesterol medications, etc.) are automatic ineligibility.

anything that has a pregnancy category other than A or B is automatic ineligibility as well.

up here in Canada, you can find out the information about any particular drug by calling them at their toll-free number (1-888-2-DONATE). i imagine that the US Red Cross has something similar.

Re:In the Meantime

[zippthorne]

Where do you think thrift stores get their stock?

Re:In the Meantime

[evilviper]

Where do you think thrift stores get their stock?

Umm... NOT from canned-food drives?

Thrift stores have 'junk' that people were going to throw out, anyway. I've never had any need to throw out a pint of blood, or nearly any canned-food.

Re:In the Meantime

[dmatos]

Every year or so I drop in to a donor centre to see if I qualify. I haven't yet. Curse my love of British beef.

Rest assured, as soon as that exclusion criterion is revoked, I'll be the first in line.

I've already signed my organ donor card, as I suspect someone dying of kidney failure would rather risk the (low) chance of contracting vCJD than stay on dyalisis.

Re:In the Meantime

[zippthorne]

They do not want your garbage. They are interested in wearable clothing that you can no longer use, whether from growing up, out, or tired of it.

I.e. clothes you could potentially sell to someone yourself if you were so inclined.

They take your donation and go on to sell it. Just like with the blood drives.

There are several reasons they don't pay for blood, though I agree with you that they're probably specious. One reason is that they are afraid that payment will bring all the undesirables out of the woodwork. An unpaid donation attracts only the altruistic. But payment might convince intervenous drug users to give blood (for their very drug money...) and lie about their history. So the non-paid donations are thought to be easier to screen. The thinking may be that all of the people that would donate for the right reasons already are donating.

But the real reason is probably simply, because they can. There is no shortage of blood, but neither is there a surplus or very much of a reserve. If there were, then they would pay for it. They already pay for plasma, so the need there must be dire enough to ignore the potential screening problem (if there is, indeed, such a problem.) In fact, the tight supply might actually be enhancing the price of wholesale blood, further discouraging supply enhancing measures.

Re:In the Meantime

[Seedy2]

Yes, lines of people who are probably not eligible.
Do you thing having a cash incentive to lie is likely to make more people tell the truth about whether they are eligible or not?
If you need a transfusion, do you want the unit that came from the junkie who lied on the form so they could get something to eat that day?
The safety of the blood supply goes way down when you start paying people, that's why it's not allowed in the US.
Anyone who "donates" and gets paid, the plasma isn't going to people, it goes to make cosmetics and stuff.

Re:In the Meantime

[nizo]

Huh; I wasn't allowed to donate because of something hepatitis related showing up in my blood the last time I donated (but further tests I had done showed no hepatitis); I wonder if this is why? I am O- so perhaps I will go check again and see if I can donate.

Re:In the Meantime

[Anonymous Coward]

Everytime I've given blood they've had a barcode you put on the form that goes with it. Basically one that says 'Ok' the other that says 'Do not use' I never really understood why you'd go in and say do not use. But I guess it makes sense if you were with a group of friends or coworkers and had a condition that would disqualify you and didn't want to tell them.

I haven't gone in for a couple years. I have a nasty problem staying hydrated enough for them to get the full amount out of me. But I'll have to head in again. I hadn't realized that O- was so valuable so it is just selfish to not make an effort.

Re:In the Meantime

[fbjon]

I just checked, and The Finnish Red Cross has the same restriction, with the explanation: "hepatitis or HIV; number of fresh hepatitis or HIV infections are ten times more common when compared to the rest of the population". Sounds fair enough. If you don't have specifically male-male intercourse, there's no restriction though, nor if you have female-female. It seems to be about what's statistically sensible, to my eyes.

Re:In the Meantime

[maxume]

The drive I was at last had plenty of donors show up. The staff they had available was the limiting factor on how much blood they collected. Lots of potential donors walked away because the projected wait was quite a bit. I haven't given all that many times, but I don't really recall a time when the people sticking needles into people were standing around looking for something to do.

Re:In the Meantime

[zippthorne]

You don't have to give blood just at the drives. There's almost guaranteed to be a Red Cross center not far from where you live, or one of the other companies (red cross is not the only organization that collects and supplies blood products) Those are rarely filled up.

Re:In the Meantime

[evilviper]

They do not want your garbage. They are interested in wearable clothing that you can no longer use, whether from growing up, out, or tired of it.

In other words, they want my garbage...

I.e. clothes you could potentially sell to someone yourself if you were so inclined.

But nobody is so inclined, so it's trash.

Re:In the Meantime

[evilviper]

Do you thing having a cash incentive to lie is likely to make more people tell the truth about whether they are eligible or not?

It's positively idiotic to believe that the safety of the US' blood supply is based on the honor system. There would be numerous deaths, daily, if that were really the case.

Re:In the Meantime

[x2A]

"Chances are good that, at some point in your life, you too will need a blood transfusion"

Are you threatening me?!!

Re:In the Meantime

[maxume]

I take your point, but people are pretty sparse around here.

Re:In the Meantime

[WuphonsReach]

I had the exact same thing happen to me, wife convinced me to have a physical since I hadn't been to the doctor in ~5 years, and then was for rotator cuff surgery. My last physical was 10 years prior for work. Anyway, I was recommended to start taking a multi-vitamin with iron supplement. This has brought my ferritin levels back up and am now allowed to donate again. The only reason I take the supplements is so I can donate, I only wish others took donating so seriously.

That's interesting - maybe things are different in Pennsylvania. Here in PA, as part of the mini-physical, I think they check iron levels before I'm allowed to donate. It's a simple test using a small thin glass/plastic tube a whirly-gig and a quick measurement of the separated out white/red blood. Maybe that isn't an iron test.

Probably the biggest personal advantage of giving blood every 8 weeks is the mini-physical. I find out what my blood pressure is and they typically do a free cholesterol screening once or twice a year. That's useful information to take back to my doctor so we get a broader baseline on whether things are going well/poorly. Especially since I don't always eat as well as I should.

Re:Half solution

[tripa]

Half solution is not a solution!

It's a full solution to the half problem.
Is half a problem not a problem?

DRM'd blood

[wedgiesaurus]

Isn't stripping this DRM off of blood going to be illegal under the DMCA? I mean, you've got it DRM'd so that only certain people can use it, and if you're breaking that....

Look out for the RIAA!!

Re:DRM'd blood

[x2A]

I license my blood under GPL3 so the DRM isn't a problem, my blood can be stripped and used by basically anyone, although there may be problems getting it into the kernel...

You are O-...

[drinkypoo]

...you are first against the wall when the cataclysm comes and we need a donor.

Re:You are O-...

[rasputin465]

you are first against the wall when the cataclysm comes and we need a donor.

No no no, if we kill him, we only get a finite amount from him. Better to keep him sedated in a bed, slowly extract blood and let his body produce more.

Re:You are O-...

[slippyblade]

Hmmmm, I'm getting flashbacks to the "blood banks" from the third Blade movie... Drop him into a giant Seal-A-Meal bag, hook up the tubes and vacuum out the air, keep him on a hook in the fridge with a keg tap attached.

What about allergy to the enzyme?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

you can usually survive 1 non-matching transfusion, even if it's incompatible. After that your immune system is 'primed', much like for a vaccination, and will attack a second transfusion with extreme prejudice, likely resulting in your death.

Which brings up the issue of whether the body would develop an immunity to the enzyme, potentially producing a fatal anaphylactic reaction upon a future transfusion.

On the other hand, if the enzyme remains in the serum rather than attaching to the red cells the reaction would not produce the fatal clumping. Meanwhile the allergy to the enzyme, even if severe, could be handled by other drugs...

Which would also suppress the immune system somewhat - in a hospital "superbug" environment. So artificial type-O will likely remain an emergency measure, and type-O donors will remain in demand.

Re:What about allergy to the enzyme?

[It'sYerMam]

I'm no microbiologist, but I find it unlikely that enzymes will trigger an immune response, especially if they're not often encountered. The reason that cells are antigens is their surface proteins, but obviously a single protein does not have such things.

Re:What about allergy to the enzyme?

[Telephone Sanitizer]

In fact, enzymes are just protein chains and allergies are frequently reactions to foreign proteins so it is a very legitimate concern.

...And if the enzymes get into an A/B/AB person?

[Aelcyx]

What will happen? Will it rip the markers off their cells too? That sounds like it could have some bad consequences. If it indeed does, then some sort of filtration process or chemical reaction that kills the enzyme only will have to take place, making it even more costly. These are enzymes, so they will not be used up in the chemical reactions.

Type O Negative

[chudgoo]

Peter Steele is pleased with the news of this development.

Re:Half solution

[belg4mit]

It's not half a solution, more like 97% of one (look at how fucking rare Rh- is)

O?

[Ibiwan]

RLY?

Re:...And if the enzymes get into an A/B/AB person

[Paradigm_Complex]

First, they take the blood out of the body. Next, then strip the markers off. Its kind of hard to get the order mixed up there.

Breakthrough?

[dj_tla]

While I may be naive, this sounds like one of the most significant pieces of medical news I've heard in my lifetime. I'm curious about how much impact this news could have if it turns out to be safe and effective. Type O is in short supply compared to other types, for obvious reasons, but does anyone have any statistics (that aren't made up) concerning deaths as a result of not having the proper type of blood? If the current and future blood supplies were converted to type O (theoretically, I would assume this would be done as needed), how many lives could it save?

Re:Half solution

[Bacon Bits]

Half solution is not a solution!

Obviously, you're not familiar with the *nix development model: Solve half the problem, and then pipe the result it to STDOUT.

Face?

[kurtis25]

Does type- O blood come from people with the O face... O...O...O

Blood type C

[ThreeDayMonk]

When I lived in Japan, I grew so annoyed by the concept of blood-type-based character predestination that I decided to have some fun with the idea. When Japanese people asked me my blood type, I replied 'C', and went on to explain (plausibly enough) that the reason they hadn't heard of it was that it occurred only in European populations. It worked most of the time, although I usually folded and admitted that there was no such thing after stringing them along a bit.

Re:...And if the enzymes get into an A/B/AB person

[Anonymous Coward]

You've missed the third step -- the one where they put the blood back into somebody else. If you take, say, type A blood, give it enzymes to make it type O, then inject a type A person with that blood -- what's the chance that the enzymes will still be present and will tear apart that person's blood system?

Some people say they can taste the difference,

[Hohlraum]

not me.

The author of the article is confused about RH -

[GargamelSpaceman]

The author of the article doesn't seem to understand that 'X negative' is synonymous with 'Type X, RH negative' where X can be A, B, AB or O. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_type The positive or negative in a blood type refers to the blood being either positive or negative for the Rhesus (RH) Factor. So there is no such thing as being AB-positive but negative for the RH factor. The preceeding is an oxymoron. Since the author of the article evidently does not understand this, the whole article is unclear and not to be trusted. Either the treated blood is ok for everyone ( both the A, B and also the RH antigens are removed by the enzyme ) or the enzymes remove A and B antigens but not RH antigens. In that case, the blood is not universally safe. Given the author's confusion, I would not hazard to guess which the actual case is.

Hey, let's all donate!

[PCM2]

I haven't heard anybody say it yet, so ... HEY SLASHDOT! Get out there and donate blood!

Donating blood is very easy and doesn't take a whole lot of your time. Typically you're not going to be light-headed or anything after you do it. It's recommended that you eat hearty before and after you donate, but how hard is that?

On the plus side, if you donate blood you are helping save somebody's life. LET ME REPEAT THAT. The blood you donate will be used to try to save somebody's life. There is absolutely no reason to give somebody a blood transfusion unless they've sustained a life-threatening injury. When's the last time you've had a blood transfusion? I've never had one, and I've messed myself up pretty bad. I hate to think about the kind of messed-up I'd need to be to require a pint of blood.

What's more, blood banks are regularly short of supply. Hospitals need blood. I know that in my area, they're always begging for extra Type O. I'm O positive. It's a pretty common blood type -- but that doesn't just mean that there's a lot of available supply. It means there's a lot of demand, too.

Consider this, too. Blood banks have all kinds of rules. Some of them you may agree with and some of them you may not. But the rules are in place. Among those rules: If you're a man who has ever had sex with another man since the 1980s, even just once, they don't want your blood. That's right -- gay dudes aren't supposed to donate. Same goes for people who have injected drugs -- even just once. Same goes if you've had a tattoo or piercing in the last 12 months. Same goes if you've spent more than a few months living in England in the last couple decades (it's the BSE thing). Same goes if you've, like, ever had sex with anybody who's a native of Africa. I'm serious, go offer to donate and look at the questionnaire ... the rules are harsh.

The point? Well, let's see. Gay dudes, people with tattoos, people who've gotten laid a lot, and people who have done serious drugs are not allowed to donate. I live in San Francisco. So, holy fuck, just who is donating blood in my town??! Not a joke ... I'm actually being serious. It seems to me that there's a pretty strong need for eligible and willing blood donors in my area.

So I donate. I believe you're allowed to do it every 8 weeks, in the U.S.

Re:Hey, let's all donate!

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider this, too. Blood banks have all kinds of rules. Some of them you may agree with and some of them you may not. But the rules are in place. Among those rules: If you're a man who has ever had sex with another man since the 1980s, even just once, they don't want your blood. That's right -- gay dudes aren't supposed to donate. Same goes for people who have injected drugs -- even just once. Same goes if you've had a tattoo or piercing in the last 12 months. Same goes if you've spent more than a few months living in England in the last couple decades (it's the BSE thing). Same goes if you've, like, ever had sex with anybody who's a native of Africa. I'm serious, go offer to donate and look at the questionnaire ... the rules are harsh.

The point? Well, let's see. Gay dudes, people with tattoos, people who've gotten laid a lot, and people who have done serious drugs are not allowed to donate. I live in San Francisco. So, holy fuck, just who is donating blood in my town??! Not a joke ... I'm actually being serious. It seems to me that there's a pretty strong need for eligible and willing blood donors in my area. I used to be a regular donor (every 12 weeks is the minimum for whole blood donation (as opposed to just plasma) in Australia), until the time I met my boyfriend. It's quite offensive that the Australia Red Cross will ask if you've had male-male sex in the past 12 months, which is an automatic disqualification whether you used a condom or not, but apparently don't seem to care how much unprotected heterosexual sex you may have had. Since they have to test everyone's blood for HIV anyway, they're missing out on a lot of potential donations.

Re:Hey, let's all donate!

[PCM2]

I used to be a regular donor (every 12 weeks is the minimum for whole blood donation (as opposed to just plasma) in Australia), until the time I met my boyfriend. It's quite offensive that the Australia Red Cross will ask if you've had male-male sex in the past 12 months, which is an automatic disqualification whether you used a condom or not, but apparently don't seem to care how much unprotected heterosexual sex you may have had. Since they have to test everyone's blood for HIV anyway, they're missing out on a lot of potential donations.

No argument here. I live in San Francisco (you may have heard, there's a lot of gay dudes here). And I'm not joking... the Red Cross here in the U.S. does not want your blood if you've had male-male homosexual sex ever. It's the subject of huge controversy. To be fair, though, they do ask who else you might have had sex with. If you've had sex with intravenous drug users, they don't want your blood either. But to equate every single member of the male gay community as having the exact same lifestyle seems like a bit of a stretch. Or outright discriminatory -- take your pick.

I'm of two minds. I'd really like to hear an open, public debate on this issue: Should you just lie? I mean, why not -- because, as you point out, they test it all anyway.

Re:Hey, let's all donate!

[shabble]

What's more, blood banks are regularly short of supply. [...]
Consider this, too. Blood banks have all kinds of rules. [...]

I wonder if these two statements could possibly be connected? Nah, don't be silly.....

I fall foul of the rules, so can't donate. If they don't want my blood, so be it. Just stop complaining that you (the organisations that is) haven't got enough.

Re:Hey, let's all donate!

[Magada]

No, you shouldn't just lie. Contrary to popular belief, not all blood gets tested for all the blood-transmissible diseases. There would be enormous expense involved. The questionnaire is a way of improving the odds that you get "healthy" blood in the first place.
As for lying on that particular test, well, here's a huge cluestick with your name on it: sick as it may seem, some diseases (such as hep B and C) are far more widespread in homosexuals than in heterosexuals and the questionnaire is an accurate reflection of this sad fact.

Re:Hey, let's all donate!

[Cadallin]

Who is donoting blood? Homophobes, and Bible-thumpers most likely. Screw that, I'd rather bleed to death. Whatever they've got might be contagious.

Re:Hey, let's all donate!

[PCM2]

As for lying on that particular test, well, here's a huge cluestick with your name on it: sick as it may seem, some diseases (such as hep B and C) are far more widespread in homosexuals than in heterosexuals and the questionnaire is an accurate reflection of this sad fact.

The questionnaire is an acknowledgment of a statistical probability, maybe, but it does nothing to establish the presence of disease. Nothing about my being heterosexual makes me immune to hepatitis B. "Less likely" does not mean "risk free." I could still donate blood that is contaminated with the disease. The fact that I have been immunized against hepatitis B, on the other hand, does make me a low risk for hepatitis B transmission as a donor. And a homosexual male could just as easily have been immunized. But, to my recollection, they don't even ask.

To give a counter example, people of African descent are much more likely to have sickle cell disease than people of European descent. People with sickle cell disease are ineligible to give blood. Yet nowhere on the questionnaire does it ask you if you're black. Somehow, however, it is acceptable to screen based on behavior types that are considered "high risk," including homosexuality, rather than screening for the presence of disease. This is enough to suggest to some people that the mandated rules for blood donors seem to be subject to biases that are not rooted in medical science, nor in the actual procedures of blood donation.

Re:Hey, let's all donate!

[novakreo]

No, you shouldn't just lie. Contrary to popular belief, not all blood gets tested for all the blood-transmissible diseases. There would be enormous expense involved. The questionnaire is a way of improving the odds that you get "healthy" blood in the first place.
As for lying on that particular test, well, here's a huge cluestick with your name on it: sick as it may seem, some diseases (such as hep B and C) are far more widespread in homosexuals than in heterosexuals and the questionnaire is an accurate reflection of this sad fact.

So, this isn't true?

Re:Hey, let's all donate!

[Magada]

Less likely is all you get with the actual tests too (there is a margin of error). If you lie, you shift things from "less likely" to "more likely" and de-value the questionnaire for everyone, eventually driving up the cost to be paid for the same amount of safety. That's not a nice thing to do.

Re:Hey, let's all donate!

[Magada]

It's not true everywhere, and I only gave hep B and C as examples... I don't see HPV on the list.

A couple of answers...

[teidou]

My day job is to run a blood bank.

The enzymes discussed in the article are the next step in 25+ years working toward the goal of making blood universally compatible. The enzymes are years and years away from routine use, if they ever do make it to market. Offhand, major questions that need to be addressed include: Does it *really* work? Is the process cost-effective at manufacturing scales? Is it safe? Does the enzyme affect other proteins so people make antibodies?

Conversion of non-O RBCs to group O RBCs will make them more widely compatible, and may alleviate the shortage of group O RBCs, but does not affect Rh compatibility or the compatibility of platelets or of FFP. We would still have shortages of these products even when the process is up and running, and, so, we still need people to donate.

There are a number of guesses, comments, and half-truths posted above. I'll do my best to answer specific (on-topic!) questions posted as replies to this comment.

Teidou.

Re:A couple of answers...

[RobertLTux]

as a person "in the business" could you give the 3x5 version of who is eligible to give blood?
I figure Healthy not taking any meds not over/underweight [+- range??] adult not inside the lockout period [2 months??] but this is the kind of thing you can't guess

sitting here as an overweight O- with a mildy infected leg

Re:A couple of answers...

[teidou]

You're not far off!

In the US, the FDA establishes minimal eligibility criterea. Most health adults who are in reasonably good health (e.g. within 20% of their ideal body weight) are eligible to donate. Deferrals exist for viral hepatits, HIV, behaviour which places one at risk for HIV (e.g. exchanging money or drugs for sex), and some travel (e.g. an extended trip to rural South America gets a one year delay for possible risk of malaria).

Only a few medications defer one from donating; unfortunately, any active infection or medication for infection is a reason to delay donation as there is a chance that the infection could be transmitted by blood transfusion.

Your local blood center should be willing to help you with specific eligibility questions.

I hope that was clear, if not, do let me know!

Teidou

Re:...And if the enzymes get into an A/B/AB person

[SuiteSisterMary]

Would it matter? If having type O blood pumped directly into your veins is OK, what's the problem with having the blood in your veins turned into type O?

Being an O- donor...

[Ogive17]

Maybe the blood banks will stop hovering outside my house like a swarm of mosquitoes! They make sure I know when it's time to donate again.. I can still see the needle hole scar on my right arm from my last three donations... I guess it's time to switch over to my left arm for a year.

So if I understand correctly, all blood can be made into type O, which anyone except O- will be able to use? Those of us with O- will still require only O-.

Re:Being an O- donor...

[compro01]

So if I understand correctly, all blood can be made into type O, which anyone except O- will be able to use? Those of us with O- will still require only O-.

if I'm understanding correctly, it makes any + type into O+ and any - type into O-, so O- will just need any negative type.

though this isn't counting the sackful of other compatibility factors (there are 29 currently recognized), so this is not an end-all-be-all solution.

Re:Being an O- donor...

[Vegeta99]

You said it man!

Last time I went, they took one line at me, and handed me a sticker with two hearts on it. They asked me to do Double Reds and said that I would get hooked up to an electrophoresis machine, and that they would take double the red blood cells, but return most of my plasma.

Turns out, they only pick the healthy ones for it (over 150lbs, blood pressure under 130 over somethin, etc) because of the sheer amount of RBC's that they take. It's a one-needle procedure, so for a while when the machine is separating your blood, you're missing a good quart of blood. Man is that a feeling!

I am AB+

[IthnkImParanoid]

No no, us AB+ prefer "All your blood can belong to me" /obvious

allergic reactions...

[Firethorn]

There's a chance anytime you inject something into the human body there of there being an immune response to it. Very few items are immune from this.

Re:Half solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only is Rh negative rare, it is seldom associated with type O. My wife is type AB negative. If this really works in stripping off the AB, her blood would become O negative, which could be very valuable as it could be given to almost anybody.

Re:Synthetic Blood - yes it does and i received it

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it has existed.

I know because I received some.

to be totally accurate, I received "artificial blood plasma"

long story short, i was in a University hospital in the late early 80s, for appendectomy
they didn't know my blood type, they did a blood test just before the operation.

the test results got lost. My appendix ruptured - on the table, while under the knife.

I had signed a waiver for use of artificial plasma previous (in case of emergency).
Who knew I'd actually need it??

but here we are 27 some odd years later. Is it still in blood stream? I have no idea.

I will say this though.... (maybe spooky), every blood test I've had since then...
the results have all been lost... yes, every single time.

or maybe i'm just an alien (this answer provided by Occam's razor)

whooo oooo oooo :)

This is gonna get me negative karma, but...

[rahvin112]

Wouldn't it be easier to just take all the a/b/ab/RH- bloodtypes out back and shoot them? Afterall when everyone is O+ you won't need to worry about those two factors. It's not too terrible, about half the population would survive.

Re:This is gonna get me negative karma, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be easier to just take all the a/b/ab/RH- bloodtypes out back and shoot them? Afterall when everyone is O+ you won't need to worry about those two factors. It's not too terrible, about half the population would survive.

And just think of how much easier it would be to find parking spots!

Who said communism is Utopia?

[microbee]

People have voted with their blood.

Re:...And if the enzymes get into an A/B/AB person

[The Step Child]

The enzyme itself could trigger an immune response and cause anaphylaxis. They would have to find a way to remove the enzyme from the blood that's being given to the patient. Hypothetically you could just stick the patient with epinephrine to counteract the immune response, but then again that would very much narrow down the possibilities for purposes of giving him or her blood in the first place.

Re:...And if the enzymes get into an A/B/AB person

[SuiteSisterMary]

Trigger an immune response due to something intrinsic in the enzyme, or strictly on general principles, in that the enzyme is a foreign compound?

It is an April Fool's joke

[SurturZ]

There is no reason on earth you would want to convert A, B, and AB blood to O for crying out loud. O is readily available, A, B, and AB are the rare ones. It's like saying wow! We've discovered a way to turn diamonds into quartz!

Re:It is an April Fool's joke

[maxume]

Mxyzptlk. If you convert A into O, B can use it. If you convert B into O, A can use it. AB can of course use any of it anyway. The whole point is that the body doesn't 'need' the factors, but it can't tolerate other types; if you remove them, the blood becomes useful for a larger population.

I think what trips people up is that O isn't a type as much as it isn't a type(Type O means you lack A and B).

Re:It is an April Fool's joke

[SurturZ]

But what about all the other factors like Kell, Kidd, Duffy etc? It would be far better to strip those factors than A/B (where blood without those factors - group O - is readily available).

Blood banks keep stocks of all ABO blood types, not just O.

Re:It is an April Fool's joke

[maxume]

My impression is that blood is reasonably available, not readily, but the article also mentions that the main benefit of the process would be in creating O- like blood, which is pretty useful, and which is not nearly as available as O+, so I think that's probably the point.

(I think that all types are stocked more because it makes O(especially negative) more available where needed, not because it matters very much if it matches)

Re:It is an April Fool's joke

[SurturZ]

I suppose if you could strip the Rh(D) antigen it would be useful. Also I suppose if you start with AB blood (say) and strip the A & B antigens, then you wouldn't have any Anti-A or Anti-B antibodies in the plasma, which might be useful if graft-vs-host is a risk. I don't know if they ever transfuse whole blood any more, I don't think so. In any case, it doesn't increase the availability of AB Plasma. (Also I am pretty sure the article said they can't strip Rh(D), although maybe stripping AB is the first step - I don't know, I'm a computer guy, not a haematologist).

I still cannot see why you would convert a rare product (AB blood) to a common product (Group O blood).

Converting O Plasma to AB Plasma would be very useful (since in terms of Plasma, AB is the universal donor) but AFAIK antigen stripping isn't going to help you there.

similar mother/child problem

[Anonymous Coward]

When a mother gives birth to a child that has an incompatible blood type, the first pregnancy is fine. However during the deliver of the baby that has an incompatible blood type, the mother's blood gets into contact with the baby's blood. First time its fine.

However if the same mother gets pregnant a second time and that during development the embryo has the same incompatible blood type, the mother's immune system will start to try to kill the "intruder" pretty badly. This usually results in miscarriage.

On an unrelated side note I'm pretty sure that I read about why some of the gods of the polyteist romans made the mother undergo such a test. Or maybe if was the mayans. Anyway the explanation really made 100% sense and, for sure, was believed to be the only one true explanation by all the people having parents believing in the same gods (what a coincidence!). Or maybe I'm just being sarcastic.

However

[Anonymous Coward]

"B" for "Black" is by far the most in demand because they're always shooting each other.

obligatory...

[Anonymous Coward]

All your blood are belong to us!

Re:Half solution

[fluffy99]

Well since they haven't solved the pesky problem of the antibodies, they still can't use this converted blood in anyone but 0 type.

Re:Half solution

[belg4mit]

That shouldn't be as difficult solve. Just mix (or rather, run over a substrate)
with the appropriate antigens to mop-up the antibodies. Probably not as cheap
as just sorting and storing the right mix of natural bloods though.

Story of O / Histoire d'O

[mrbluze]

Now we're talking! Nothing like a hot blooded, saucy and universally accepted (even though many won't, on religious grounds) product that sells like hotcakes!

Donate Platelets Instead

[gawbl]

Does your local Red Cross handle platelets?

A platelet donation usually involves two needles; a machine pumps blood out of one arm, through a centrifuge where they extract the platelets, and dumps the rest into your other arm. Depending upon your platelet count, the procedure takes 1-2 hours.

While it sounds dramatic, apparently the body replaces the platelets in a few days. Since they're not taking red blood (just a trivial amount for testing), your iron levels won't be significantly affected. It does help if you have large, accessible veins in your elbows. :-)

Platelets have a shelf life of 5 days, so they're always in demand.

More here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plateletpheresis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apheresis

gawbl