Here's a Report I've read in the Japanese media which is of interest to those with JW connections:
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In Japan, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has been promoting the development of artificial blood products since 1997, supporting a project designed to address the safety issues of donor blood and the problems of supply shortages.
Waseda's research
At Waseda University, a group led by professor-emeritus Eishun Tsuchida and associate professor Shinji Takeoka has developed an artificial red blood cell that has been proven safe and effective in studies with rats where half of the blood was substituted.
Because hemoglobin molecules are around 1,000 times smaller than red blood cells, they cannot be simply injected into blood vessels because the molecules can slip through the gaps in the blood vessels and cause vaseconstriction. Preventing this has been the subject of research for years.
Northfield Laboratories (U.S.) solved the problem by binding groups of hemoglobin molecules together. The Waseda University group took a different strategy, encapsulating the hemoglobin inside lipid vesicles. These vesicles are too big to escape from inside the blood vessels but not so big as to clog up in the capillaries.
Whereas red blood cells last for only around three weeks even when refrigerated, this new artificial construct can be stored for as long as two years at room temperature.. The Waseda group hopes to complete work on the substance in another 12 months and then move on to clinical trials.
Meanwhile, a research team at Hokkaido University is studying a type of artificial red blood cell made by linking hemoglobin to nitrogen oxide, which acts to relax the blood vessels and prevent the hemoglobin from causing vaso-constriction.
Artificial platelets are also the subject of research in Japan. For example, a group led by professor Yasuo Ikeda at Keio University has developed a product that has demonstrated the ability to staunch bleeding in animal experiments. The task now is to modify the substance so it is more compatible with natural platelets in the blood.
The demand for blood in transfusion is high; platelet transfusions alone are growing at a rate of 10% per year. At the same time, society is aging, meaning that there are fewer people in the younger age brackets capable of donating blood. Artificial blood, on the other hand, can be mass-produced, so it will be available in massive quantities when needed in emergency situations.
Quoted from "THE NIKKEI WEEKLY" April 22,2002
Cheers,
Ozzie
"If our hopes for peace are placed in the hands of imperfect people, they are bound to evaporate."
- Ron Hutchcraft Surviving the Storms of Stress