Bacterial enzyme strips away blood types to create universal donor blood
Bacterial enzyme strips away blood types to create universal donor blood
Using enzymes produced by a bacteria that almost everyone has in their gut, researchers have removed the antigens from red blood cells that determine blood type, putting us within reach of producing universal donor blood.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15069736
Bacterial enzyme strips away blood types to create universal donor blood
"Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and Lund University, Sweden, have used enzymes produced by a common gut bacteria to remove the A and B antigens from red blood cells, bringing them one step closer to creating universal donor blood."
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Well in an emergency, once can be the difference between decades of life or near-immediate death, so I'd still call this a massive win..
Having worked in the blood bank I just don’t see this as a massive win. Win, sure. Massive? ABO issues are a tiny fraction of what the blood bank deals with. If all blood was O neg blood bankers would still have a busy job. I’d be more excited to see a development in reducing TRALI, creating 30 day platelets or something like that. I just don’t see this as fundamentally changing much in the blood bank. More O is good of course, but blood bank is way more involved than that.
Fair enough. I guess I'll stop being excited about the good news and instead focus on how it could have been better 😉
Don't whine. You were presented with a learning opportunity and your reflex was to be shitty? That's not very mature, son. Do better.
I'm not whining, just teasing the one who, in spite of agreeing that it's definitely a win, saw it necessary to yuck on everyone's yum in UPLIFTING News of all places. 🙄
This group is meant as a more hopeful counterweight to all the negative stuff in all other news groups and, for some, help not feeling that the world is only irrevocably fucked up. To be a wet blanket in such a group is a SPECIAL level of grouchiness lol
Hard agree! Thank you for saying this!!
one of the problems with scientific literacy today is that on the web the value of nearly every new study, drug, technique, etc is overstated by both the media and the public. This is probably because overstating things increases engagement.
Imo things can just be small steps in the right direction and that's ok.
Man, science communication is in a bad spot if all they're doing is blunting people's expectations and, as the previous user very aptly mentioned "yucking everyone's yum".
This is why people make fun of Neal Degrass Tyson, many times his explanations are both pedantic and unnecessary, which I would argue is the same as the comment that started this thread.
Especially when what they were talking about was actually listed in the article!
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They specially mention this in the article. It does work on multiple antigens beyond ABO, they even list that there are over 40 blood types that we know of with 300+ antigens.
Did what you do at a blood bank involve an education or just a name tag, cause they have receptionists and hourly workers at blood banks.
I believe "Vampire-fluffer" was their official title.
As a side note, I derived silly amounts of joy from this one simple action:
Fuck off with the personal insults.
Clearly, "Vampire-fluffer" is too far over the top to be considered anything but pure silliness.
Unless I've accidentally stumbled on something close to the truth? 😄
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I don't feel like they were expecting this to change a lot right now - it's a stepping stone
bringing them one step closer to creating universal donor blood."
How many people do receive more than one blood transfusion on average? Seems like something that doesn't happen often, and maybe this could make it easier for the most common uses of donor blood?