Question: Could your work make blood donors obsolete?

David Grainger answered on 1 Jun 2018:

In theory, yes it could. However, there are easier ways to do this.

My work is aiming to make the blood stem cells which can make all kinds of blood cells (red and white). When people donate blood, they are mostly giving the fluid and red blood cells. Scientists can already make these red blood cells pretty easily using cells that have been made immortal and can make a huge number of red blood cells. There was a BBC news article about it some time ago – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-39354627

My work would be used in a different context. When people have a bone marrow transplant (for blood cancer treatment for example), what they are really getting is a blood stem cell transplant since the blood stem cells live in our bone marrow. This of course requires bone marrow donors which can be difficult to find as their stem cells need to match the patients. My work will contribute to trying to get rid of the need for these bone marrow donors by making the stem cells to be put straight into the patients.

So while my work may not get rid of the need for blood donors, it could help to make bone marrow donors obsolete.