We Already Know a Way to Save a Bunch of Lives. There's a Really Dumb Reason We Aren't Doing It.

"Blood runs through every human body. And yet there's still not enough of it. For one, not enough people are donating it. But it's also really hard to store, and it takes very special conditions to keep it healthy. But there's a potential solution: an artificial version that wouldn't need to be treated quite as gently or refrigerated. The Department of Defense recently granted $46 million to the group responsible for the development of a synthetic blood called ErythroMer."

"It took a long time for people to figure out what it was, but even before that, everyone thought of it as special. You can see that in everything from religion: blood sacrifices to gods or Jesus Christ's sacrifice of his own blood to save humanity. It's a very important symbolic liquid. And it always has been. Virgil calls it the "purple soul.""

Blood is essential to human life but current supplies are inadequate due to low donation rates and difficult storage requirements that demand special conditions. An artificial blood substitute, ErythroMer, aims to address these problems by being universal, freeze-dryable, and reconstitutable on demand. The Department of Defense provided $46 million to support its development. A functional synthetic alternative could reduce preventable deaths caused by lack of timely transfusions. Blood carries deep symbolic and historical significance across cultures, historically regarded as the essence of a person and compared metaphorically to a "purple soul."

Read at Slate Magazine