Healthcare systems depend on blood donations, which are harmless for the donors because humans usually just reproduce blood and can repeat the process over and over. What about blood is so special that we can’t manufacture it in a lab or replace is with artificial blood?
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So platelets are the clotting component of your blood. They only are good for roughly 5 days and they need to be suspended in plasma to keep them alive.
There is something called “Platelet Additive Solution” that is able to replace 60-70% of the plasma the platelets are suspended in. It is basically just salts and minerals and is able to keep the platelets happy enough.
Blood donation organizations sometimes use it when collecting platelets because they are able to take the 60-70% of plasma “saved” by using PAS and divert it into a separate plasma unit. That way when you donate platelets you sometimes are donating a separate plasma unit at the same time.
It is by no means artificial blood, but I thought you might find it interesting.
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