- cross-posted to:
- upliftingnews@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- upliftingnews@lemmy.world
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.”
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 😉