Donors Needed! |

You’ve seen the ads, the pleas. Local hospital or blood bank needs blood donations. Your blood donation saves lives!

Of course, years ago, when I was heavily involved in dialysis, no one would take my blood. Because as I’ve written, hepatitis was prevalent in most dialysis centers. And, it was then called non-A, non-B type (now termed type C) hepatitis. And, it was too expensive and difficult to make sure I wasn’t carrying the virus.

Not anymore, though. Because I am not working in dialysis centers, because the epidemic is under control, and we have cheaper testing. (No, I don’t have the virus.) But, my blood type is AB negative. Which means it’s rare- and that I am not the universal donor. That’s folks who have O-type blood.

About a decade ago, some misguided folks decided to test an artificial blood in 20 cities across the US. Why was it misguided? Because they were using this synthetic blood without consent by the trauma patients that need blood ASAP- and it was administered while they were in ambulances being transported to the hospital.

In America, the concept of testing things out without consent is verboten. For good reasons. (About 15 years earlier than that study, some 20 patients died while being tested with a synthetic blood- also without consent.) But, PolyHeme had managed to convince some folks to effect this testing. Sure, if it worked, it would be fantastic. But, if it didn’t- what would you tell the patients’ families? It’s not our fault- they would have died anyway????

I’m not saying I’m against synthetic blood. I’m just against testing it on patients without informed consent. Even though it may be infinitely better than loading the patient with saline, that just dilutes the hemoglobin (which carries the oxygen we need to survive).

And, blood IS in short supply. Every 2 seconds of every day, someone needs blood. That’s a tall number. And, as I said, the universal blood donor is O-negative. And, that prevails in about 7 percent of the US population.

But, now, Drs. DH Kwan, I Constantinescu, R. Chapania, MA Higgins, MP Kotzler, AB Boraston, JN Kizhakkedathu, and team leader Stephen G Withers (Universities of British Columbia and Victoria, Canada) plus E Samain (CNRS, France) may make blood donation just a little more “universal”. They published the results of their engineered enzymes in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The researchers started with a glycoside hydrolase they isolated from Streptococcus pneumoniae. This enzyme already cleaved the terminal trisaccharide from glycans (in particular the A and B antigens that make blood either A, B, or AB and not the O type). Then, they engineered the mutations to augment the capabilities (170 fold!) of the enzyme- so that now it totally removes the antigens from the cell surfaces.

Et, voila! They now have universal blood- O negative- useful for blood transfusions, transplants (organ and tissue) with no worries about mismatching the antigens.

So, the next time you complain about mutation and genetic manipulation… remember, the life saved may be your own.