Researchers at Med Uni Graz are pioneering efforts to develop lab-grown blood as a solution to the chronic shortage of blood donations. For over a decade, the university’s Department of Blood Group Serology and Transfusion Medicine has been working to produce fully functional red blood cells from human stem cells in the lab.
Using advanced cultivation techniques, stem cells are grown in nutrient solutions and incubated at body temperature, yielding hundreds of millions of cells. However, scaling up production to meet clinical needs remains a challenge due to high costs and technical limitations in adapting bioreactors for the delicate cells.
A major breakthrough in 2020 by the Graz team significantly improved cell stability, placing them at the forefront of international research. Their work also includes using induced pluripotent stem cells, which can replicate indefinitely and be tailored to individual patients for disease modeling and personalized treatments.
Despite progress, large-scale clinical use is still five to ten years away, with regulatory approval hurdles to overcome. Lead researcher Isabel Dorn sees lab-grown blood as a future lifeline for patients with rare blood types or complex immunological needs rather than a full replacement for donations.
Source: Med Uni Graz
About the Author
