Pitt medical team working to create synthetic blood for human use

PITTSBURGH — A team of doctors at Pitt’s School of Medicine is putting together years of work and a decade of research, and the end goal is to create synthetic blood for humans.

“This is truly a very transformative science that could lead to saving tens of thousands of lives per year,” said Dr. Philip Spinella at the University of Pittsburgh Trauma & Transfusion Research Center.

“The goal is to make this product dried so it’s easy to reconstitute and make it shelf stable. One of the main limitations of blood and blood products is they have a shelf life,” said Dr. Matthew Neal who’s an UPMC Trauma Surgeon.

Dr. Neal said it’s a real problem, citing an example from Tuesday night when he saw a patient transferred in from a small hospital a few hours away.

“That patient was massively bleeding from a result of their injuries and that hospital had only two units of blood available. This is the problem we have to fix; we have to make the resources that are available at a Level 1 Trauma Center like UPMC Presbyterian available around the world,” Neal said.

That’s where this $46.4 million project comes into play, with a national team including three local doctors. It starts with creating a synthetic blood bank for animals, to start testing on animals, if this dried blood substitute will work.

“We are talking about getting treatment to people prehospital in the ambulance, on the battlefield at the point of injury you could reconstitute this product and give it to a bleeding person to save their life,” said Dr. Susan Shea, a University of Pittsburgh assistant professor of Surgery & Bioenginerring.

While it won’t replace blood donors, doctors believe it will supplement to help the ongoing shortages. The hope is to be able to give the product to anyone no matter their blood type.

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