The first blood substitute was developed back in the early 1600s and continues till now in the search for a better and ideal replacement. Blood is one of the vital necessity in the human body due to the majority of the role it carries out in it. One of it is picking up oxygen from the lungs, back to the heart and then to the rest of the body. Other roles include removing toxins and waste from thebody, transporting nutrients from the digestive system as well as fighting germs among others (Geyer, 2013). Sometimes, people with blood disorders may be required to replace it with artificial blood especially in cases where the common blood transfusion is incompatible. In these do or die cases, Artificial blood comes in, and the specialist uses it to diagnose and save the life of the patient at hand.

Typically, artificial blood is a substance that is used by professionals or specialist to mimic and fulfill some of the functions of biological blood (Chang, 2013). In most cases, it is designed for a sole reason for carrying oxygen and carbon dioxide throughout the body, unlike the biological blood that serves many different functions.

Numerous blood substitutes have been discovered in several research methodologies. One of them is Per-fluorocarbon (PFC) blood substitutes which are synthetic blood products that are obtained from carbon and fluorine containing chemicals (Moradi, Jahanian& Roudkenar, 2016)). Thesesubstances are more effective in absorbing oxygen in the lungseven more than water or blood plasma, and they are generally white. Chemically, they are usually inert. These are the first generation blood substitutes discovered and preferred by the scientist because of their oxygen dissolving ability. However, one of their disadvantages is that they have to be emulsified before being given to patients since they areimmiscible with blood(Geyer, 2013). Examples of PFC blood substitutes include Perftoran, Oxygents, Oxycyte, PHER-O2, and Fluosol-DA-20.

Secondly is the Haemoglobin –based oxygen carrier (HBOC) blood substitutes. These locums are derived from sterilized, and they are usually dark red making them look like the biological blood. They are somewhat smaller than the normal blood cells, and one of the main disadvantage they have over the normal red blood cells is that they remain active in the bloodstream for only 24hrs, unlike the real ones which last for about 100 days (Tao& Ghoroghchian, 2014). They are manufactured through a biological method referred to as polymerization where two or more molecules are bonded together to form a larger HBOC molecule. The Bonded molecules come either from expired human blood, cow blood or even Haemoglobin producing genetically modified bacteria(Chang, 2013). Examples of these HBOC substitutes include polyhemes, Hemospan, Engineered hemoglobin hemotech, hemopure as well as Hemospan.

Despite there having several blood substitutes, not even a single perfect replacement has been discovered yet that can carry all the roles played by the real blood in a human setting. In that regard, more research is still underway including modern technologies such as blood pharming. One of the potential approaches, although it has not reached clinical trials, is the strategy of encasing oxygen carriers in a polymeric shell (Kobayashi, Tsuchida,&Horinouchi, 2014). These carriers are more perfectly closer to the normal blood cells functions than even the free hemoglobin or per-fluorocarbon products. Moreover, scientists are conducting and more so going further to discover a blood substitute that can last longer in the human body as most of them last no longer than 60hrs.

References

Geyer, R. P. (2013). The design of artificial blood substitutes. Drug Design: Medicinal Chemistry: A Series of Monographs, 7.

Chang, T. M. S. (2013). Artificial cells. In Biomaterials Science (Third Edition) (pp. 811-827).

Moradi, S., Jahanian-Najafabadi, A., & Roudkenar, M. H. (2016). Artificial blood substitutes: First steps on the long route to clinical utility. Clinical Medicine Insights: Blood Disorders, 9, CMBD-S38461.

Tao, Z., & Ghoroghchian, P. P. (2014). Microparticle, nanoparticle, and stem cell-based oxygen carriers as advanced blood substitutes. Trends in biotechnology, 32(9), 466-473.

Kobayashi, K., Tsuchida, E., &Horinouchi, H. (2014). Artificial Oxygen Carrier. Springer Verlag, Japan.

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