CLEVELAND — Soldiers wounded on the battlefield. The time to receive medical care is critical. As a training exercise shows, having life-saving blood at the ready is a necessity. But that comes with several challenges.
“So, what if they could have powdered artificial blood in their medical pack and can treat the injuries right there on the battlefield by just reconstituting it with saline,” asks Anirban Sen Gupta, a professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University.
Developing a freeze-dried blood substitute is a $46.4 million dollar effort of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. One of the institutes on the front lines of the research is Case Western Reserve University. The current blood supply relies on donors. And it has a short shelf life. Plus, blood types need to be matched to patients. For immediate needs, a universal artificial blood could be a game changer.
“So, the problems we are solving for the military are not that far away from the problems that we can solve for civilian sectors regarding blood availability, portability, storage, etc.,” Sen Gupta said.
Comprised of red blood cells, platelets and plasma, each component has a unique function. Case is looking at the clotting ability of artificial platelets, while colleagues at different universities tackle other properties. All the research will be combined in this 4-year project to make sure the manufactured blood is as safe as the real thing.
“So currently we are in year two and we are already showing a lot of progress in meeting at least 70 to 80% of the functions of stored human blood,” Sen Gupta said.
Haima Therapeutics, a Cleveland company co-founded by Sen Gupta, is making advances in the artificial platelets and is also part of the project. Sen Gupta envisions lifesaving potential for the military and economically fragile communities.
“This can be banked at community hospitals,” Sen Gupta said. “You don't require a complex blood bank to store it, which means this can now go into areas where previously blood transfusion care was not available.”
Seeing the idea of artificial blood move from research to bedside within his career is a unique opportunity, but is not Sen Gupta’s only motivation.
“It also ties into some, you know, personal life matters where I have seen family members in danger because of the need and the limited availability of blood transfusion,” said Sen Gupta. “So, saving lives becomes the bottom line.”
The final goal of the DARPA project is to get the artificial blood ready for clinical trials. Sen Gupta estimates that if all goes well, the artificial blood could be in use by 2030.