[ELI5] How does blood stay usable for transfusions in the refrigerator?

Question

Wouldn’t the cold temperatures kill the blood cells?

In: 18

Answer 1

Mammalian red blood cells are not very “alive” to begin with. They don’t have a nucleus, DNA, ribosomes, or mitochondria; they’re basically a wad of hemoglobin in a cell membrane. So there aren’t a lot of living processes to be interrupted by cold.