Will we ever have synthetic blood?

Today’s Video of the Day from the American Chemical Society describes the quest for synthetic blood, which would revolutionize transfusion medicine. While there have been some recent breakthroughs in the search for an alternative to human blood, the reality is that finding an artificial substance that can keep us alive is very difficult. 

According to ACS, people have been tackling the challenge of blood transfusions for nearly 400 years. Such transfusions have become much more routine and successful, but having synthetic blood would offer many benefits over getting blood from other humans.

With a chronic blood shortage in the world, doctors have to choose who gets blood, and some hospitals have less than a one day supply of critical blood types, reports ACS.  Furthermore, we will need more and more blood as the world’s population gets older.

Video Credit: ACS Reactions

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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer