DTN 099: The Long Quest for Artificial Blood

Plus: AI powers nuclear energy, compact nuclear reactors detect cancer, e-fuels make diamonds before jet fuel, NASA streams on Twitch, quantum teleportation distributes calculations, and more.

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HAUS: The Deep Tech Agency
February 07, 2025

The Long Quest for Artificial Blood

“Regardless of whether any of these efforts will actually translate into clinical reality, the quest to synthesize and even improve on blood has taught us volumes about it. “What I cannot create, I do not understand,” the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman famously scribbled on his Caltech blackboard. In the process of trying and failing to mimic the magic that takes place in the human body, researchers have answered questions they wouldn’t otherwise have thought to ask, learning about everything from the role of nitric oxide in the body to the particular choreography of chemical signals that trigger the release of platelets from their mother cells. ‘The more we figure out about how it works inside our body, the more practical it is to make it outside of the body,’ Wattendorf said. ‘We are truly in a golden era of understanding blood.’”

Tooth cells are cultured in the lab to create bioengineered teeth.

Researchers at Tufts University have successfully grown humanlike "teeth" in mini pigs by combining pig and human tooth cells on scaffolds created from pig tooth pieces. The bioengineered structures represent a promising alternative to traditional dental implants, as they can develop hard tissue layers like cementum and dentin, and potentially integrate with a person's gums and jaw. Unlike titanium implants, which can cause bone damage and bacterial infections, these lab-grown teeth aim to more closely mimic natural tooth development. After implanting the tooth fragments in six mini pigs, the researchers found that the structures began growing similarly to healthy adult teeth. While not yet perfect, the scientists are optimistic about eventually creating functional biological tooth substitutes for human tooth replacement. (via MIT Technology Review)

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