A team working out of the Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca claim to have created a form of fake blood suitable and safe for use in humans, deriving their artificial red stuff from proteins found in sea worms.The sea worm blood mix is based around hemerythrin, one marine animal equivalent of the haemoglobin that does the oxygen transportation job in humans. It’s more robust than our haemoglobin, so is better able to survive being mixed, bottled, and poured into someone who’s leaked away their own blood through accident or operation.
It’s been successfully tested on mice and doesn’t come with the possibility of causing infections like traditional transfusions, with the doctors involved hoping to be allowed to pipe it into people within the next couple of years. [Medical Daily via Mashable]
