New blood: thalassaemia patients could be first to benefit from pioneering research

Scientists leading a pioneering study that aims to use stem cells to create a limitless supply of blood are hoping to start trials by 2016. Thalassaemia patients could be amongst the first people to benefit from trials of lab-produced red blood cells which, if successful, could end the need for human donors. The 'BloodPharma Project' is being led by the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) with the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Heriot-Watt, NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) and Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) using stem cells produced by Roslin Cells Ltd. Over the last four years the researchers have been working out how to make embryonic stem cells turn into red blood cells that could be mass produced. The team have received funding from the Wellcome Trust and Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and both SNBTS and NHSBT contribute research staff and costs as part of their strategic R&D programmes. Dr Jo Mountford, an experimental haematolgist at the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow, is leading the basic science of the project, and is hopeful of a trial start date in late 2016. She said: "There are many hurdles to overcome in the process of turning a stem cell into a useful red blood cell, and even more challenges we face in trying to ramp-up production to an industrial scale. "We must first make the stem cells become a mesoderm - one of the body layers that makes things like muscle, bone and blood - and then get it to turn into blood cells.