First in the World: Cow Blood Save Human Lives

Melbourne, shortages of blood donors make scientists began developing synthetic blood, which is made from cattle blood plasma. For the first time, the breakthrough was successfully applied to a car accident victim who lost a lot of blood.

Tamara Coakley, 33 years old in Australian women experiencing severe collision that almost claimed his life. In the accident, he lost so much blood to the point that many heart fails to pump oxygen around the body.

Not only that, he also suffered damage to the spine, collapsed lung, fractured skull and several broken ribs. As reported the Daily Telegraph, Coakley also suffered a ruptured spleen damage in the accident.

"Arriving at the hospital, my blood stayed two pints of blood (about 946.4 ml)," Coakley said as quoted by the Herald Sun, Friday (05/06/2011).

Because of donated blood relatives are not sufficient, the team physician at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne finally ordered 10 pints (4.7 L) of synthetic blood from the United States. Blood plasma is made from cows that had not been previously transfused in humans.

Synthetic blood called hemoglobin HBOC201 are actually, one of the blood component that serves to carry oxygen. Without sufficient hemoglobin, oxygen can not be distributed so that different organs can not function normally.

Compared to native blood obtained from donors, synthetic blood plasma of cattle has several advantages. Of whom do not need re-examination (cross-match) and can be stored up to 3 years old without having to put the refrigerator.

"This breakthrough is an important step in the development of alternative blood to overcome the global shortage of blood donors. It's like science fiction," said one doctor at the hospital, Prof. Mark Fitzgerald.

To anticipate the scarcity of donors, scientists did was heavily blood-develop other synthetic blood. Among the hematopoetic stem cell technology, which are making synthetic blood of stem cell material, among others, can be obtained from the placenta.

Based of here