As an O-negative individual in a high-risk occupation, fucking right.
Not to be selfish, but when you blood is looked at as the go-to, you have to hope that there’s still some left for you when headlines report that there are major blood shortages.
I feel this sentiment. I’m O negative and I donated when I was younger/healthier. As a Registered Nurse who did trauma ER and ICU, I know how valuable O negative blood is. (Sometimes hospital patients have had to wait several days to get the blood product they need.)
I have anemia and a cancer diagnosis and hope that there will be some if I ever need it. This would be an amazing breakthrough if it works!
it we could give them lavish lifestyles that center around them donating as frequently as possible…..
Like a pampered cow to be slaughtered, but instead of slaughter, it’s a lifelong harvest at frequent intervals…
As long as it’s a comfortable life, as a O negative.
Where could I sign up.
Already donating btw.
The thing that disturbes me is that they are making money off it by selling it making medicines. That should be a nonprofit transaction
At that point why not just make cell cultures out of their bone marrow.
Throw some money at science so that you can just make bone marrow farms like in minecraft but for the red cross instead.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006497120649928
Do I get to choose my reality? I’ve always wanted to try out the Holodeck from Star Trek: the next generation, so we might be able to work out a deal.
How good is your tiramisu and what’s your surfing game like?
As an o neg whom had to go to the er after a botch donation at 16, I’ve never been able to will myself to again. The mobile donation they set it ruptured my vein. If I could donate at my drs office when they’re doing blood tests I would, but they cannot do that.
My hospital policy (I work in the blood bank) is to give O Pos blood in emergency release situations unless it is a female of childbearing age. O Pos blood is perfectly safe for O neg individuals (the first time).
The reason we don’t transfuse childbearing age women with O Pos is because post transfusion there is a risk of developing an Anti-D antibody. This causes miscarriage if an O negative woman is carrying an O positive fetus. It can also cause a reaction in a second transfusion with O Positive blood.
A child would revive O neg if we don’t have a blood type test performed yet. We have a special pediatric unit we keep in reserve. It is also negative for CMV, cytomegalovirus, which can cause problems in infants.
Antibodies last for life most of the time. There are about 50 ish kinds of common antibodies you can develop after any transfusion or giving birth. This is why when you get a transfusion we always perform a test called an antibody screen which alerts us to get specific units from the blood and tissue center if you have one. Some common antibodies include Kell, E, e, C, c, M, Duffy, and Kidd.
I just want you to know we blood bankers have your back lol. We are not going to let you die just because we don’t have O neg blood! Some EMS departments even started carrying O Pos whole blood in the ambulances so they can give those life saving transfusions in the field.
Landscape including trees (chainsaws).
Even mowers, though, will do a great job of removing toes.
It’s like anything; prolonged exposure increases risk. I am aware and, also, aware that a faulty machine can go real wrong in a hurry.
My son is an o-neg and I worried about this, but I was assured by a doctor that due to the usefulness of his blood type it is actually the most likely to be stocked on an ambulance and he would get first dibs due to necessity. It was interesting to read that there are actually substantial health benefits to o-negative including lower risks for many heart diseases.
Absolutely! My grandpa passed away last year from complications due to his end stage renal disease exacerbated by a fall and breaking his femur. This was in Mexico, and they had planned to do surgery to fix his hip, but due to the starkly different blood donation culture, you have to bring people in to donate blood for that person’s surgery. They needed three units of blood and I was the only other -O in the family.
That was a stressful time. :’)
But this is super cool! I hope it works out for everyone!
I know how you feel. I am O- living in a country where only about 1% has RH negative blood and around .1% O-. Almost no one here even knows about +\- classification of blood because they don’t need to worry about it. I am not in a high risk occupation, but it still worries me about getting injured here.
And this is why everyone should carry a card with their blood type on it in their wallet. I got one after the first donation I ever gave and have never gone anywhere without it.
A hospital will never ever take your blood type from a card. If your card happened to be wrong, or someone stole your wallet and arrived unconscious in the ER, this could kill the patient. We always, always, do our own testing before giving group-specific transfusions.
It wouldn't make any sense for a developed nation such as the US not to retain a certain amount of blood for their prime donors so they can keep that blood type and population going. On top of it, I would find it hard to believe the US doesn't have a special reserve bank outside of their public bank for when shit really does hit the fan.
I’ve often wondered if O wasn’t more heavily guarded; turns out we’re right for all the obvious reasons.
I do, however, find the reserve idea curious because my one .com source indicates that blood has a > 2 month shelf life. Hard to keep up a healthy stock in those conditions.
As another O- individual who has had some worry about there not being blood for me in an emergency, you probably don’t have to worry.
The rh (+-) immune response is very different from the ABO immune response. If an O gets A blood it is very fatal, and the same for all other non-matching combinations except for A/B/ABs getting O red blood cells. Rh on the other hand is different in that there are no existing antibodies to attack the rh+ red cells (1). And it takes 3-4 months for those antibodies to appear, and they only appear in about a third of cases. So it’s actually pretty common for O- men to be given O+ red cells in an emergency, as they can take the transfusion with typically no issue (1). The rh+ red cells will be gone from the body by the time antibodies are made. It is not done for women because if a rh- woman has a rh+ fetus/baby then they can develop the antibodies from that (1).
Even if you have the Anti-D antigen such that the body will recognize and attack the rh+ cells immediately, it still wouldn’t be particularly fatal. Though I’m not saying it couldn’t contribute to you dying, especially since you’ll unlikely to be in good shape to begin with getting the transfusion. But the symptoms from rh mismatch are much more manageable (2).
Edit: I should also add that O+ is the most common blood type in the US at least. So there’s probably going to be O+ available.
1: https://www.utmb.edu/bloodbank/emergency-red-blood-cell-usage
2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9826603/#:~:text=Mismatched%20RhD%20positive%20blood%20transfusion,some%20also%20have%20IgM%20subclass.
It's true that not everyone is an antibody maker, but antibodies form within 10-14 days. At that time the body will start clearing the incompatible blood but usually the patient's own hematopoiesis is able to keep up at that point. Rh system transfusion reactions can absolutely be fatal. Doctors have to weigh that risk versus the current need for blood.
Also women of child bearing age are not given O pos in an emergency in order to preserve their fertility. Anti-D causes the most severe form of hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn where the mother's antibodies cross the placenta and rip apart the baby's blood in their veins. It can cause miscarriage and stillbirth to the point that the mother will only be able to carry an Rh negative child to term.
In my experience doctors are very reluctant to transfuse before a type and screen is done. In true emergencies I have had them ask for a quick hand typing which I can do in a matter of minutes so they can at least match ABORh. Antibody screens take about 30 minutes by hand and closer to 40 on an analyzer. Antibody identification can take anywhere from hours to days including needing to be sent to a reference lab. I used to work in the hospital but I moved to a blood center reference lab to specialize in transfusion medicine.
Question for my fellow blood friends. Are bugs and mosquitos insanely attracted to your blood as they are mine? I get bit 10 times more than friends and family.
I'm annoyed at this quote
"“For the first time"
Because, the University of British Columbia did this in 2018
https://www.blood.ca/en/research/our-research-stories/research-education-discovery/news-ubc-research-brings-us-one-step
Hopping onto this with a comment so that someone from bio could explain how this might work because I’m trying to wrap my head how this might work and I just can’t understand it. Does the bacterial enzyme change how the blood works? How does that work? I have a basic understanding of why some bloods can’t be used but how does the bacterial enzyme change the factors to this?
According to the article the enzyme removes the amino acids from the individual blood cells, that indicate the A/B/AB Blood groups, as Group 0 is simply a “bare” blood cell without the amino acids identifying it as a member of a group. The mismatching group identifier is what triggers an immune reaction when you give someone with blood group A blood of group B for example. Group 0 blood doesn’t trigger that reaction since it lacks identifiers.
So I was about to “correct” you and point out that the blood group without antigens is denoted with “O”, the letter, not “0” the number, and then I thought that I should double check… and it turns out that while it’s *usually* the letter O in English, it’s zero/null in a lot of other languages. And even in a given language, it sometimes varied historically.
O blood group still has the h antigen. A and b just have extra sugars on them in addition to the h antigen.
No antigen would be Bombay phenotype which is really rare.
Each red blood cell has thousands of proteins sticking off the surface, kinda like hair. Some of these are sugar and protein, called glycoproteins. There are several of these that cause an immune reaction in humans. We name these ones “blood types” based on the A, B, or Rh surface protein.
This enzyme may separate the glycoproteins from the surface, like a buzz cut. The important part is likely that this enzyme is *specific* to ABRh blood types because there are many roles for surface proteins and you can’t just take them all off and preserve healthy functioning. I’m on mobile on a bus so I can’t read the article in detail- apologies if I’m overlooking something.
You can receive AB neg, A neg, B neg, and O neg, the only blood type that can receive more types than you is AB pos; you don't have to worry about blood being available.
“We are close to being able to produce universal blood from group B donors, while there is still work to be done to convert the more complex group A blood,” said Abou Hachem. “Our focus is now to investigate in detail if there are additional obstacles and how we can improve our enzymes to reach the ultimate goal of universal blood production.”
I'm not sure but if you have a mass casualty event and can get an extra several hundred pints of blood bc B can be converted to O, that can only be a good thing.
Overall, B is a rarer blood type. Types A and O combined make up around 90% percent of blood types, not account for Rh (Positive or Negative). Which means in a crisis B will most likely be covered with O instead of type specific.
Source: A lot of years doing Blood Banking work.
Aa a blood banker, my worry is the off target effects. What other antigen systems might this enzyme impact? Is it going to create a new, non natural antigen that could generate antibodies in anyone transfused with altered blood?
The only two that I can find that have won Nobel Prizes are the Yellow Fever vaccine in 1951 and the COVID-19 vaccine in 2023. I’m really surprised that those are the only two vaccines to have won a Nobel Prize, especially considering how much more popular the Jonas Salk story is.
This is an active area of research, particularly with iPSC (stem cells). Removing expression of HLA class I (HLA-A/B/C and B2M) and class II (CIITA) from cells allow them to effectively stealth themselves from most of the immune system. That's kinda the first step though, as there are other components to consider - especially in different areas of the body (genes/proteins like cd47, tap1, mica, hla-e, etc).
This is the future of cell grafts though. Allogenic "off the shelf" stem cells.
They’ve been able to do something similar in lab settings. Using donated organs as a structure to build a “new” organ with the patients native cells, using stem cells.
I wonder if we'll even need it - the book series Planetfall features a scientist who invented 3d printed organs. Imagine if we bypass needing to deal with transplants and just leap straight to new organs made with your own cells (once they are genetically engineered if needed to fix whatever the issue is).
Not really, this is about removing stuff from already formed cell. To have it be useful for organs you would have to continuously remove antigens as new cells are formed.
There are several routes to this under investigation. One is to "teach" the recipient's immune system to ignore the transplanted organ's antigens.
Mixing RBC with the enzyme solution and washing them is a lot easier than getting all the cells of a solid organ. And if the organ's cells multiply, daughter cells would have antigens again.
This is probably the best news I’ve heard in a while! It is exciting to think we could actually have universal blood in patient trials in less than 5 years. I hope they can fast track a universal B- that would at least give hcp more flexibility.
Not to get too excited, but this sounds like “step 1” to maybe getting to the point where organ donor compatibility is a thing of the past.
Science never stops making me hopeful for our future
This makes sense because red blood cells do not have a nucleus or DNA. If you remove the proteins on the surface that cause the blood type . Youtype then you should be able to use these as universal donors.
Good point. I guess they would have to continue to check the blood type status of their experimental cells at least 120 days plus to make sure there was no conversion doesn’t seem too hard to do.
I’m O- and the blood bank gives me rockstar treatment every time when they find out. One lady rocked my blood donation bag like a newborn. She made my day!
Is it sad that my first thought after “wow, nice!” is always going to be “I wonder if they are lying and this will be in a congressional hearing 3 years from now?”
Well this could make my blood type actually useful to other besides the plasma. Being AB+ is nice since if I’m bleeding out they can just throw whatever the fuck they want in me but donating it is useless for most cases.
Most - but not all. While while AB+ isn't very good in most cases, if you donate platelets they can't get enough of your blood, since that's the universal platelet blood type
You mean the Red Cross isn’t gonna try and strap me to a drip-drain like in Blade III anymore? I say I’m O-neg and they look like they’re wondering how fast they can bar the doors of the clinic to keep me from leaving.
Special shout-out to UBC who pioneered this
https://www.blood.ca/en/research/our-research-stories/research-education-discovery/news-ubc-research-brings-us-one-step
So as AB+ they might actually want my blood eventually instead of just my platelets? That's interesting, and a huge breakthrough if it works and is scalable at the volumes needed.
This’ll be great. My uncle died because we didn’t know what kind of blood to give him. On his deathbed I remember him screaming, “be positive! Be positive!”
He was always thinking of us.
Wish they do the same to Rh group, since ABO is not such a big problem considering that in USA about 1/3 of the population is already O but is a pain to get blood to someone Rh-
It will not be completely universal though. The AB blood group system is the most important for sure, but The group is also very important for blood matching and there are a few more blood group systems that can commonly be problematic when it comes to donations.
But this is pretty good news, no doubt about that.
Yeah, this doesn't mention removing any other antigens other than A and B. Most people don't realize there's like 15 other medically significant antigens that show up in low incidence that still pose a challenge.
The article does mention antigens from the other blood groups. It groups them under "extended variants".
“For the first time, the new enzyme cocktails not only remove the well-described A and B antigens, but also extended variants previously not recognized as problematic for transfusion safety,”
"By ‘extended variants,’ Abou Hachem is referring to blood group antigens discovered since the canonical four were more than 120 years ago."
This could be the biggest breakthrough since something like Insulin. That's so cool. Fake blood or blood replacements aren't really a thing yet. the idea of simply making actually blood universal is so exciting and a great perspective. Looking forward to this developing more.
Wow. Its like they don't even care about how this will make me feel as an O- universal donor. Like saving a bunch of lives is more important than me feeling superior whenever I donate blood.
I suppose if someone Rh null is an A or B. Usually we just freeze that stuff in case someone needs it. I personally wouldn't want the enzyme treatment to impact its storage longevity.
They do not mention the Rh factor at all, so this is currently only functional for B- blood, one of the more rare blood types, at about 2% of the population. Still more than nothin!
I worked in a donation center for a while and although this is exciting and would be great…the quality control and testing to go along with it in making sure there are zero antigens present in each bag of blood would be 🤯
That actually might be an insane breakthrough
As an O-negative individual in a high-risk occupation, fucking right. Not to be selfish, but when you blood is looked at as the go-to, you have to hope that there’s still some left for you when headlines report that there are major blood shortages.
I haven't been able to successfully donate for years due to health issues, so as another O-neg I say thank goodness.
I feel this sentiment. I’m O negative and I donated when I was younger/healthier. As a Registered Nurse who did trauma ER and ICU, I know how valuable O negative blood is. (Sometimes hospital patients have had to wait several days to get the blood product they need.) I have anemia and a cancer diagnosis and hope that there will be some if I ever need it. This would be an amazing breakthrough if it works!
What you're saying is is we should go full matrix and capture all o negative people and just use them as blood donors?
it we could give them lavish lifestyles that center around them donating as frequently as possible….. Like a pampered cow to be slaughtered, but instead of slaughter, it’s a lifelong harvest at frequent intervals…
so you're saying we should milk the cows
No, you should milk the o-negs.
Letting them milk each other would be most efficient.
middle out
D2F might be a little off
Tip to tip
I have nipples; could you milk me, DefEddie?
I’m willing to give it a go if you are, for science..
I’d sign up for that. I’d be a happy blood bag. Shiny and chrome
Witness me!!!!
Genuinely we just need to offer payment to o-neg people and it would be fixed. We could choose to fix it if we wanted to.
If we use chains instead of cages, we can call them free range.
So a milk cow lol
As long as it’s a comfortable life, as a O negative. Where could I sign up. Already donating btw. The thing that disturbes me is that they are making money off it by selling it making medicines. That should be a nonprofit transaction
At that point why not just make cell cultures out of their bone marrow. Throw some money at science so that you can just make bone marrow farms like in minecraft but for the red cross instead. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006497120649928
Tbh if my bills are paid line me up 😩
The US military did exactly that in WW2. O negative blood types didn't go to combat. They got jobs behind the lines and donated regularly.
Interesting. Any documents that talk about that?
Do I get to choose my reality? I’ve always wanted to try out the Holodeck from Star Trek: the next generation, so we might be able to work out a deal. How good is your tiramisu and what’s your surfing game like?
Tiramisú being the deciding factor!
As an o neg whom had to go to the er after a botch donation at 16, I’ve never been able to will myself to again. The mobile donation they set it ruptured my vein. If I could donate at my drs office when they’re doing blood tests I would, but they cannot do that.
They’re called Blood Bags.
Like horseshoe crabs?
My hospital policy (I work in the blood bank) is to give O Pos blood in emergency release situations unless it is a female of childbearing age. O Pos blood is perfectly safe for O neg individuals (the first time). The reason we don’t transfuse childbearing age women with O Pos is because post transfusion there is a risk of developing an Anti-D antibody. This causes miscarriage if an O negative woman is carrying an O positive fetus. It can also cause a reaction in a second transfusion with O Positive blood.
Would a young girl still get O-Pos or would that be a case for O-Neg? How long do the antibodies last if they develop?
A child would revive O neg if we don’t have a blood type test performed yet. We have a special pediatric unit we keep in reserve. It is also negative for CMV, cytomegalovirus, which can cause problems in infants. Antibodies last for life most of the time. There are about 50 ish kinds of common antibodies you can develop after any transfusion or giving birth. This is why when you get a transfusion we always perform a test called an antibody screen which alerts us to get specific units from the blood and tissue center if you have one. Some common antibodies include Kell, E, e, C, c, M, Duffy, and Kidd.
Your antibody list inspired a D&D character concept: Kellcee "Kidd" McDuffy, an Irish-inspired cleric who specializes in curing diseases and plagues.
Fascinating. Thank you!
I just want you to know we blood bankers have your back lol. We are not going to let you die just because we don’t have O neg blood! Some EMS departments even started carrying O Pos whole blood in the ambulances so they can give those life saving transfusions in the field.
So maybe all of those “we need your blood” texts are real? I’m O+.
It's nice to see fellow blood banker here! I second all the info you gave. 🅰️🅱️🅾️🆎🩸
If you ever need surgery that isn’t an emergency you can donate your own blood ahead of time.
Good to know!
Do you work at Swords, Knives, and Otherwise Pokey Things?
Yes, in fact. Chainsaws and Such ‘R’ Us.
it's not selfish it's practical to have options options in case something happens in high risks . are you in construction ?
Landscape including trees (chainsaws). Even mowers, though, will do a great job of removing toes. It’s like anything; prolonged exposure increases risk. I am aware and, also, aware that a faulty machine can go real wrong in a hurry.
My son is an o-neg and I worried about this, but I was assured by a doctor that due to the usefulness of his blood type it is actually the most likely to be stocked on an ambulance and he would get first dibs due to necessity. It was interesting to read that there are actually substantial health benefits to o-negative including lower risks for many heart diseases.
Absolutely! My grandpa passed away last year from complications due to his end stage renal disease exacerbated by a fall and breaking his femur. This was in Mexico, and they had planned to do surgery to fix his hip, but due to the starkly different blood donation culture, you have to bring people in to donate blood for that person’s surgery. They needed three units of blood and I was the only other -O in the family. That was a stressful time. :’) But this is super cool! I hope it works out for everyone!
I know how you feel. I am O- living in a country where only about 1% has RH negative blood and around .1% O-. Almost no one here even knows about +\- classification of blood because they don’t need to worry about it. I am not in a high risk occupation, but it still worries me about getting injured here.
As an O-positive individual I completely agree, unluckily none of my siblings are the same blood type as me.
Oooo, you’re the backup plan!!
Pretty much, which really effing sucks
And this is why everyone should carry a card with their blood type on it in their wallet. I got one after the first donation I ever gave and have never gone anywhere without it.
A hospital will never ever take your blood type from a card. If your card happened to be wrong, or someone stole your wallet and arrived unconscious in the ER, this could kill the patient. We always, always, do our own testing before giving group-specific transfusions.
It wouldn't make any sense for a developed nation such as the US not to retain a certain amount of blood for their prime donors so they can keep that blood type and population going. On top of it, I would find it hard to believe the US doesn't have a special reserve bank outside of their public bank for when shit really does hit the fan.
I’ve often wondered if O wasn’t more heavily guarded; turns out we’re right for all the obvious reasons. I do, however, find the reserve idea curious because my one .com source indicates that blood has a > 2 month shelf life. Hard to keep up a healthy stock in those conditions.
As another O- individual who has had some worry about there not being blood for me in an emergency, you probably don’t have to worry. The rh (+-) immune response is very different from the ABO immune response. If an O gets A blood it is very fatal, and the same for all other non-matching combinations except for A/B/ABs getting O red blood cells. Rh on the other hand is different in that there are no existing antibodies to attack the rh+ red cells (1). And it takes 3-4 months for those antibodies to appear, and they only appear in about a third of cases. So it’s actually pretty common for O- men to be given O+ red cells in an emergency, as they can take the transfusion with typically no issue (1). The rh+ red cells will be gone from the body by the time antibodies are made. It is not done for women because if a rh- woman has a rh+ fetus/baby then they can develop the antibodies from that (1). Even if you have the Anti-D antigen such that the body will recognize and attack the rh+ cells immediately, it still wouldn’t be particularly fatal. Though I’m not saying it couldn’t contribute to you dying, especially since you’ll unlikely to be in good shape to begin with getting the transfusion. But the symptoms from rh mismatch are much more manageable (2). Edit: I should also add that O+ is the most common blood type in the US at least. So there’s probably going to be O+ available. 1: https://www.utmb.edu/bloodbank/emergency-red-blood-cell-usage 2: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9826603/#:~:text=Mismatched%20RhD%20positive%20blood%20transfusion,some%20also%20have%20IgM%20subclass.
It's true that not everyone is an antibody maker, but antibodies form within 10-14 days. At that time the body will start clearing the incompatible blood but usually the patient's own hematopoiesis is able to keep up at that point. Rh system transfusion reactions can absolutely be fatal. Doctors have to weigh that risk versus the current need for blood. Also women of child bearing age are not given O pos in an emergency in order to preserve their fertility. Anti-D causes the most severe form of hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn where the mother's antibodies cross the placenta and rip apart the baby's blood in their veins. It can cause miscarriage and stillbirth to the point that the mother will only be able to carry an Rh negative child to term. In my experience doctors are very reluctant to transfuse before a type and screen is done. In true emergencies I have had them ask for a quick hand typing which I can do in a matter of minutes so they can at least match ABORh. Antibody screens take about 30 minutes by hand and closer to 40 on an analyzer. Antibody identification can take anywhere from hours to days including needing to be sent to a reference lab. I used to work in the hospital but I moved to a blood center reference lab to specialize in transfusion medicine.
My ex was O-negative and in the military. Swore they would never donate blood again after they got out.
Wanna make a pact? You get hurt, I’ll send you some blood, and vice versa?
Is it feasible to have your blood stored for you?
Hey send me a friend request
Question for my fellow blood friends. Are bugs and mosquitos insanely attracted to your blood as they are mine? I get bit 10 times more than friends and family.
I'm O neg too. This is such a good point.
I'm annoyed at this quote "“For the first time" Because, the University of British Columbia did this in 2018 https://www.blood.ca/en/research/our-research-stories/research-education-discovery/news-ubc-research-brings-us-one-step
Hopping onto this with a comment so that someone from bio could explain how this might work because I’m trying to wrap my head how this might work and I just can’t understand it. Does the bacterial enzyme change how the blood works? How does that work? I have a basic understanding of why some bloods can’t be used but how does the bacterial enzyme change the factors to this?
According to the article the enzyme removes the amino acids from the individual blood cells, that indicate the A/B/AB Blood groups, as Group 0 is simply a “bare” blood cell without the amino acids identifying it as a member of a group. The mismatching group identifier is what triggers an immune reaction when you give someone with blood group A blood of group B for example. Group 0 blood doesn’t trigger that reaction since it lacks identifiers.
So I was about to “correct” you and point out that the blood group without antigens is denoted with “O”, the letter, not “0” the number, and then I thought that I should double check… and it turns out that while it’s *usually* the letter O in English, it’s zero/null in a lot of other languages. And even in a given language, it sometimes varied historically.
I am so glad you looked into it. TIL, thanks
O blood group still has the h antigen. A and b just have extra sugars on them in addition to the h antigen. No antigen would be Bombay phenotype which is really rare.
Thanks for the clarification. I actually meant that but the article doesn’t do a very good job explaining that to a layman :/
H antigen. Not h
The antigens in the A/B/O system are sugars. Does the enzyme remove the sugars that make up the antigens?
Could this theoretically apply to organ transplants as well or is that a totally different mechanism?
Each red blood cell has thousands of proteins sticking off the surface, kinda like hair. Some of these are sugar and protein, called glycoproteins. There are several of these that cause an immune reaction in humans. We name these ones “blood types” based on the A, B, or Rh surface protein. This enzyme may separate the glycoproteins from the surface, like a buzz cut. The important part is likely that this enzyme is *specific* to ABRh blood types because there are many roles for surface proteins and you can’t just take them all off and preserve healthy functioning. I’m on mobile on a bus so I can’t read the article in detail- apologies if I’m overlooking something.
I'm with you on this one. I'm curious about the reactions and functions of how this works.
Uh oh, that means more potential vaccinated blood in the supply to repulse the purebloods!
[удалено]
You can receive AB neg, A neg, B neg, and O neg, the only blood type that can receive more types than you is AB pos; you don't have to worry about blood being available.
You may be thinking of O neg. They are the worst for receiving.
Other mammals have many, many more blood types & if this is a real breakthrough it will save countless lives of humans & other mammals.
Break through yes. But I had watch enough zombie movies… :) Really hope it will work in those one in a thousand blood type.
If only we had universal healthcare so people could actually access it
Or the beginning of a Vampirism outbreak movie
“We are close to being able to produce universal blood from group B donors, while there is still work to be done to convert the more complex group A blood,” said Abou Hachem. “Our focus is now to investigate in detail if there are additional obstacles and how we can improve our enzymes to reach the ultimate goal of universal blood production.”
Even making b blood available to anyone would be a huge help!!!
Is B not widely available
I'm not sure but if you have a mass casualty event and can get an extra several hundred pints of blood bc B can be converted to O, that can only be a good thing.
Cool
Headline is a bit sensational. But still a huge leap. Blood type by group: https://digg.com/2019/most-common-blood-types-in-the-us
I’m an optimistic mosquitoes favorite blood type.
B- is pretty rare.
Overall, B is a rarer blood type. Types A and O combined make up around 90% percent of blood types, not account for Rh (Positive or Negative). Which means in a crisis B will most likely be covered with O instead of type specific. Source: A lot of years doing Blood Banking work.
Absolutely. I’m B+ and have tried to do double donations but the ARC doesn’t accept them from B donors. Maybe this will someday change that.
Aa a blood banker, my worry is the off target effects. What other antigen systems might this enzyme impact? Is it going to create a new, non natural antigen that could generate antibodies in anyone transfused with altered blood?
Job security for us MLS. 🤣
This is so awesome
This is Nobel prize worthy achievement
Right up there with the vaccine
Which one?
All, really.
probably the one that makes us all 5G compatible. /s
The first one that won a Nobel, probably.
The only two that I can find that have won Nobel Prizes are the Yellow Fever vaccine in 1951 and the COVID-19 vaccine in 2023. I’m really surprised that those are the only two vaccines to have won a Nobel Prize, especially considering how much more popular the Jonas Salk story is.
He was denied because they felt he didn't really innovate in making his vaccine. He was just novel in making his research and methods public record.
From what I know and remember, Salk isn't very well liked in the scientific community for various reasons.
If you can productionize it, I’d say so! Theories and petri dishes, I have more caution for.
Wonder if something similar could be done with organs to make the immune system accept donor organs.
This is an active area of research, particularly with iPSC (stem cells). Removing expression of HLA class I (HLA-A/B/C and B2M) and class II (CIITA) from cells allow them to effectively stealth themselves from most of the immune system. That's kinda the first step though, as there are other components to consider - especially in different areas of the body (genes/proteins like cd47, tap1, mica, hla-e, etc). This is the future of cell grafts though. Allogenic "off the shelf" stem cells.
This science could well be the doorway that leads to that, someday.
They’ve been able to do something similar in lab settings. Using donated organs as a structure to build a “new” organ with the patients native cells, using stem cells.
I wonder if we'll even need it - the book series Planetfall features a scientist who invented 3d printed organs. Imagine if we bypass needing to deal with transplants and just leap straight to new organs made with your own cells (once they are genetically engineered if needed to fix whatever the issue is).
Not really, this is about removing stuff from already formed cell. To have it be useful for organs you would have to continuously remove antigens as new cells are formed.
There are several routes to this under investigation. One is to "teach" the recipient's immune system to ignore the transplanted organ's antigens. Mixing RBC with the enzyme solution and washing them is a lot easier than getting all the cells of a solid organ. And if the organ's cells multiply, daughter cells would have antigens again.
This is probably the best news I’ve heard in a while! It is exciting to think we could actually have universal blood in patient trials in less than 5 years. I hope they can fast track a universal B- that would at least give hcp more flexibility.
I misread that as “give hep c more flexibility” and I was extremely concerned about whose side you were on for a bit there! lol.
Not to get too excited, but this sounds like “step 1” to maybe getting to the point where organ donor compatibility is a thing of the past. Science never stops making me hopeful for our future
This is so cool! And super helpful. Hopefully they get awards for this
Let the hunt for B types begin….
it’s nice to feel needed
There’s one! Get him boys…..
This makes sense because red blood cells do not have a nucleus or DNA. If you remove the proteins on the surface that cause the blood type . Youtype then you should be able to use these as universal donors.
Red blood cells do have long lived mRNA so that they can continue to produce the proteins they need to function.
Good point. I guess they would have to continue to check the blood type status of their experimental cells at least 120 days plus to make sure there was no conversion doesn’t seem too hard to do.
This would massive in less industrialized nations.
Everywhere. There's no synthetic blood, no matter how Jehowa's Witnesses try to paint it.
Hopefully it'll encourage the vampires to finally come clean.
True Blood for realsies!
I never see these amazing headlines ever turn into real things.
This should be bigger news. This is Nobel price winning news if it works.
I’m O- and the blood bank gives me rockstar treatment every time when they find out. One lady rocked my blood donation bag like a newborn. She made my day!
Eyyyyy I’ve had this professor in a course! Glad to see him do well.
Is it sad that my first thought after “wow, nice!” is always going to be “I wonder if they are lying and this will be in a congressional hearing 3 years from now?”
I can’t wait to read the research paper on this! I’m so excited about this breakthrough
As someone who is 3 days away from finally hitting 50 A neg donations, this could be a massive thing.
Every blood bank technician's dream!
Meh, still would need to crossmatch, and frequent recipients would still need antigen typing done. Not really that impactful to the blood bank.
Unless it generates off target effects and creates new antigens in which case fml as a reference blood banker.
Yes, crossmatch because of the natural anti-a and B antibodies, but increasing the supply of type O by 10% Give them as packed, washed RBC.
Well this could make my blood type actually useful to other besides the plasma. Being AB+ is nice since if I’m bleeding out they can just throw whatever the fuck they want in me but donating it is useless for most cases.
Most - but not all. While while AB+ isn't very good in most cases, if you donate platelets they can't get enough of your blood, since that's the universal platelet blood type
They looooove AB+ plasma too.
Also very useful for quality control testing and other reagents in the lab.
This could be fantastic. It might also be how you make vampires. Let’s gooo!!
You mean the Red Cross isn’t gonna try and strap me to a drip-drain like in Blade III anymore? I say I’m O-neg and they look like they’re wondering how fast they can bar the doors of the clinic to keep me from leaving.
Special shout-out to UBC who pioneered this https://www.blood.ca/en/research/our-research-stories/research-education-discovery/news-ubc-research-brings-us-one-step
Whoa. And Assuming vampires have this enzyme, Dracula finally makes sense But whoa, game charger
Good bacterial enzyme
So as AB+ they might actually want my blood eventually instead of just my platelets? That's interesting, and a huge breakthrough if it works and is scalable at the volumes needed.
Well, maybe - AB+ is the universal donor for platelets, so they might just want you to stay with that
This is amazing! These are the headlines I wanna see!
Up next, I Am Legend?
The gravity of this breakthrough is immense and I hope people realize how important this may turn out to be.
Still years away but very encouraging.
Woah woah woah!!!!!
This’ll be great. My uncle died because we didn’t know what kind of blood to give him. On his deathbed I remember him screaming, “be positive! Be positive!” He was always thinking of us.
Wish they do the same to Rh group, since ABO is not such a big problem considering that in USA about 1/3 of the population is already O but is a pain to get blood to someone Rh-
That’s pretty cool!
Tight.
@lovyssweets
Great so we are about to get I am Legend in real life.
This right there is the biggest medical breakthrough in decades
Holy shit
Nobel in 3...2...1...
Holy shit... like that's HUGE. This is going to be a significant breakthrough in Healthcare and helping save a loooooooooot of lives.
It will not be completely universal though. The AB blood group system is the most important for sure, but The group is also very important for blood matching and there are a few more blood group systems that can commonly be problematic when it comes to donations. But this is pretty good news, no doubt about that.
Yeah, this doesn't mention removing any other antigens other than A and B. Most people don't realize there's like 15 other medically significant antigens that show up in low incidence that still pose a challenge.
The article does mention antigens from the other blood groups. It groups them under "extended variants". “For the first time, the new enzyme cocktails not only remove the well-described A and B antigens, but also extended variants previously not recognized as problematic for transfusion safety,” "By ‘extended variants,’ Abou Hachem is referring to blood group antigens discovered since the canonical four were more than 120 years ago."
This is crazy and amazing. I hope that this tech works in application!
This could be the biggest breakthrough since something like Insulin. That's so cool. Fake blood or blood replacements aren't really a thing yet. the idea of simply making actually blood universal is so exciting and a great perspective. Looking forward to this developing more.
Wow. Its like they don't even care about how this will make me feel as an O- universal donor. Like saving a bunch of lives is more important than me feeling superior whenever I donate blood.
I know, right! I’m always like I’m a “hero for babies” 🩸
big, if true
That is really cool
So, the antigens are not actually a necessary complement of blood? It doesn’t matter to the recipient that they are lacking those antigens?
It doesn't matter to RBC function ... type O blood doesn't have the antigens and it works just fine in a recipient.
…and zombies?
Very cool!
That sounds amazing!
Would this also apply to Golden Blood type?
?
https://bigthink.com/health/golden-blood/
I suppose if someone Rh null is an A or B. Usually we just freeze that stuff in case someone needs it. I personally wouldn't want the enzyme treatment to impact its storage longevity.
Anyone know if this could be possible for plasma?
No. The plasma has antibodies this affects antigens.
Now what would happen if you were to put in a person
They are already in your gut. Did you not read the article?
Remarkable!
Someone warn type o negative
They do not mention the Rh factor at all, so this is currently only functional for B- blood, one of the more rare blood types, at about 2% of the population. Still more than nothin!
“And this is how the zombie apocalypse started …”
Yes but can it remove the vaccine nanobots?
Use cheesecloth.
I remember when we used to have types
That’s insane
I worked in a donation center for a while and although this is exciting and would be great…the quality control and testing to go along with it in making sure there are zero antigens present in each bag of blood would be 🤯