Transcript
Does this change blood donation forever? These are red blood cells grown in a lab that did not come from a human, but started with just a couple of cells that were taken from them and can be reproduced indefinitely. Those were O-negative blood cells, meaning that they could be given to any human with any blood type, without being rejected. Normally, only around 1 in 15 people have an O-negative blood type. But close to 2 million die every year due to traumatic injuries. And for many of them, every second counts. storage, time taken to test the patient's blood is time wasted. But in many cases, they don't have the right blood. The Red Cross declared a severe blood shortage in January of this year. Go donate. But that's in the US where most blood donors are. The rest of the world has it way worse. The problem is that blood can't be stored frozen so it only lasts 30 to 45 days, and needs to be kept under proper conditions, and you have to worry about contamination with things like HIV and hepatitis, which are pretty prevalent in some areas. see biotech in Kase Area to see how they plan on solving all of this. So this is a bioreactor full of stem cells that are going to be converted into red blood cells and it didn't come from a donor because they're all being grown. In this microscope we've got the actual stem cells that you can see on the screen right over here. Each dot, each bright dot is a cell. The dark dot in the middle is the cell nucleus. I asked the CEO why this hasn't been done yet and he said, stem cells are very finicky. They like to grow either stuck to each other or to surfaces, which doesn't allow scaling up indefinitely and reducing the cost. This technology will allow us to grow in great volumes and using chemically defined growth media, which will reduce the cost. Right now, they're still developing their cell lines and perfecting their process, but they hope to begin clinical trials within the next three years. Still ways off, but I'm excited. This could save a lot of lives.
Additional notes
Some 200,000 women die in childbirth from blood loss each year, while 300,000 babies are born every year with blood disorders requiring transfusions. There’s never enough to go around :/ Right now it costs ~$200 / unit of donated blood, but Dr. Gargir believes they can get their tech producing it at < $50/unit in a handful of years, and that will only continue to drop as the process gets more efficient and they have great economies of scale. The “1 in 15 people have O- Blood” stat is for the U.S. In most countries it is lower, with a few being somewhat higher, but none over 1 in 10. RedC Biotech is developing their tech based on some unique patents developed at the Technion and has licensed the technology to mass produce stem cells exclusively for red blood cells from Accellta, another Israeli startup (which I’m pretty excited about the other possible uses of). That company is also working as a subcontractor for RedC Biotech to scale up the process ahead of clinical trials. #science #biology #edutok #learnontiktok #tiktoklearningcampaign
References
- RedC Biotech, Technion patents, and Accellta licensing context mentioned in caption/transcript; direct source links not listed in workbook.
- Red Cross severe blood shortage mentioned in transcript; direct source link not listed in workbook.