Making artificial blood for transfusions.

Making artificial blood for transfusions.Blood transfusions can save the lives of patients who have suffered major blood loss, but hospitals don't always have enough or the right type on hand. In search of a solution, researchers have developed a promising substitute using blood's oxygen-carrying component, hemoglobin. This in vitro study found that the modified hemoglobin was an effective oxygen carrier and also scavenged for potentially damaging free radicals. The researchers developed a one-step method for wrapping hemoglobin in polydopamine, or PDA, which has been widely studied for biomedical applications.