# CALLING ALL red-blooded men: do you prefer real or fake?
No, I?m not talking about those. I am, of course, referring to the crimson fluid flowing through your veins. The European Union is funding a project to develop blood substitutes that would ultimately do away with the need for donated human blood in transfusions.
Donated blood suffers from several obvious drawbacks: contaminated blood can transmit HIV, hepatitis viruses and, rarely, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). It has a shelf life of little over a month, leading to both wastage and shortages. Screening and refrigerated storage is expensive, rendering it an unaffordable luxury for poor countries. It must be matched to the recipient ? a transfusion of the wrong blood type can be fatal. People with rare blood groups are hard to treat.
Scientists have long sought to manufacture artificial blood, or, at least, the bits in it most needed in medicine. Haemoglobin, the molecule that does the oxygenating, is the prime target, although the iron, coagulants and antibodies found in whole blood are also separated out and used.
Because haemoglobin is ferried around in red blood cells there is no point isolating it and injecting it directly; it would exit immediately via the kidneys without circulating.
The European project, led by Dr Kenneth Lowe at Nottingham University, aims to attach a genetically altered form of haemoglobin to large artificial molecules. The liquid would not only circulate around the body delivering oxygen, but also fill emptied blood vessels to prevent them collapsing.
If such a liquid could be mass-produced cheaply and stored without refrigeration it would be invaluable on the battlefield or in disaster areas, where it could be used for the treatment of casualties.