Money doesn’t grow on trees—it’s actually grown in a lab, and it’s synthetic human blood.
Lab-produced artificial blood
No, this artificial blood isn’t being created to nourish the Artificial Intelligence robots Elon Musk is creating—it’s actually for people and patients.
British researchers have figured out a way to reliably produce an unlimited number of red blood cells, which improves upon the old methodology which required repeated donations and would only yield small quantities of mature cells.
The trick was that they just needed to create “immortalized”, premature red blood cells that could be cultured indefinitely, which means that they can be produced on a much larger scale than previously possible…. ah, of course, immortalized blood cells! Why didn’t I think of that?!
Kidding aside, this is a huge breakthrough for doctors, who’ve dreamed of the day when they wouldn’t have to worry about rationing blood supply because they have Walmart-sized warehouses full of artificial blood.
It’s like printing money
For decades, kind people with extra blood on their hands have been donating pints at their local blood drive, those seemingly-altruistic events sponsored by none other than the Red Cross. But little do most people know, the Red Cross actually turns around and sells these donations to hospitals for between $180-300 per liter, depending on the market and rarity of one’s blood. In fact, it’s a $2 billion annual business for the Red Cross!
So, shouldn’t they be worried that their cash cow is going to quickly turn into a cash mouse when this artificial blood undercuts the market price?
Nope. In classic scientist fashion, the researchers don’t seem too concerned with cashing in the winning lottery ticket they’ve just scratched off. Instead, their vision is to use this synthetic blood to serve the rare blood type population, who often have to wait or even get denied blood transfusions due to lack of supply. People who have sickle cell disease or thalassemia, conditions that require frequent transfusions, also stand to gain the most from this new type of synthesized blood.
Beyond the specialized use cases, this breakthrough really is a game changer for all people in underserved or unsafe areas, as hospitals no longer have to worry about running out of rare blood when life-or-death situations emerge.
Just don’t tell the capitalists about this, or they’ll be pumping out blood like ExxonMobil does oil.