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The First Artificial Blood Test Results Are “Encouraging,” Vampires Thrilled

Oh, and did we mention it was even invented in Romania?

Tru Blood

We need a lot of blood. In the US, over 41,000 blood donations are required for patients in need – every single day. Since not everyone can (or is willing to) donate blood, science has been working to come up with a solution for our blood shortage – and Romanian researchers may have done just that.

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Overlooking for a moment that Romania is the home of Dracula and basically where vampires were invented so, yeah, this is a little weird; but, a team of Romanian researchers has developed synthetic blood in a laboratory, and found their first test use results pretty encouraging.

The Romanian Tru Blood is made from water, salt, albumin, and a marine worm protein called hemerythrin (yum!), which transports and stores oxygen. Hemerythrin also makes the blood stress-resistant, which means this is the first type of artificial blood that doesn’t turn toxic under stress.

The successful trials were completed using mice, and they’re still a couple of years away from human trials, but they’re on the right track. Also, Spike is probably really, really stoked.

(via I F*cking Love Science, image via Scott Beale)

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Sam Maggs
Sam Maggs is a writer and televisioner, currently hailing from the Kingdom of the North (Toronto). Her first book, THE FANGIRL'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY will be out soon from Quirk Books. Sam’s parents saw Star Wars: A New Hope 24 times when it first came out, so none of this is really her fault.

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