Artificial blood
Mine Ün1, Oytun Erbaş2
1Istanbul Aydın University Medical Faculty, Istanbul, Turkey
2Department of Physiology, Demiroğlu Bilim University Faculty of Medicine, Istanbul, Turkey
Keywords: Artificial blood, modified hemoglobin, perfluorocarbons, recombinant hemoglobin
Abstract
Problems with blood collection and preservation have led to the development of blood substitutes. Artificial blood studies mainly aim towards the artificial realization of the functions and movements of the natural hemoglobin molecule found in erythrocytes. Therefore, artificial blood studies are on two main products: hemoglobin and perfluorocarbons. It has been proven that it is possible to produce recombinant hemoglobin in yeast. Currently, commercial production of recombinant hemoglobin is very expensive. After three-times reduction of costs and establishment of large production facilities, hemoglobin can be produced on a large scale. The challenges that still exist can be solved by synthetic biology and metabolic engineering. As a result, recombinant hemoglobin production can provide access to safe and affordable blood substitutions for the entire world population.
The authors declared no conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.
The authors received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.