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Synthetic Blood Via Artificial Cells And Platelets From Stem Cells

There’s hema­tology news, times two (at least):

1. Progress in devel­oping syn­thetic red blood cells

A University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill research group has created hydrogel par­ticles that mimic the size, shape and flex­i­bility of red blood cells (RBCs). The researchers used PRINT® (Particle Replication in Non-wetting Templates) tech­nology to gen­erate the fake RBCs, which are said to have a rel­a­tively long half-life. The findings were reported on-line yes­terday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) (abstract available, sub­scription required for full text). According to a PR-ish but inter­esting post on Futurity, a website put forth by a con­sortium of major research uni­ver­sities, tests of the par­ticles’ ability to perform func­tions such as trans­porting oxygen or car­rying ther­a­peutic drugs have not yet been conducted.

Developing com­petent, arti­ficial RBCs is a hematologist’s holy grail of sorts, because with that you might alle­viate anemia without the risks of transfusion.

2. Progress in using human stem cells to gen­erate lots of platelets

In an exciting paper pub­lished today in Cell Research, inves­ti­gators stim­u­lated human embryonic stem cells to become platelet-producing cells, called megakary­ocytes. According to the article (open-text at Nature PG), the platelets were pro­duced in abun­dance, appeared typical and clotted appro­pri­ately in response to stimuli in vitro. The researchers injected them into mice, used high-speed video microscopy for imaging, and demon­strated that the stem cell-derived human platelets con­tributed to clot for­mation in mice, in vivo (i.e., they seem to work). Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Medical Lessons*

Man Dies Of Internal Bleeding After Rattlesnake Bites His Finger

In a recent issue of Wilderness & Environmental Medicine (Volume 20, Number 2, 2009), Anne-Michelle Ruha and Steven Curry have written an article entitled “Recombinant Factor VIIa for Treatment of Gastrointestinal Hemorrhage Following Rattlesnake Envenomation.” This is a “case report,” meaning that this is a description of a particular medical event, rather than a study.

To open the piece, the authors observe that North American rattlesnakes possess venom with properties that can cause severe physiological effects, such as low platelet count and, on occasion. bleeding. In this report, we learn about a 44 year old man who was bitten on the index finger by an unidentified (unknown for this case) species of rattlesnake. The victim developed massive gastrointestinal bleeding that was treated eventually with a product known as recombinant factor VIIa. His initial clinical presentation included an altered level of consciousness, profoundly low blood pressure (shock), sweating, and vomiting of bright red blood. Read more »

This post, Man Dies Of Internal Bleeding After Rattlesnake Bites His Finger, was originally published on Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..

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