The constant search for enough donated blood to meet demand could become a thing of the past, thanks to research into the development of industrially-generated blood funded by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).

Funding of £2.5 million over five years will go to four Scottish universities – Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh and Dundee, working with Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service – for this ground-breaking project to generate red blood cells and establish a new bioengineering and manufacturing capacity for Scotland.

The £2,5 million funding has secured the continuation of an earlier £2,9 million Wellcome Trust funded collaborative research project 'Proof of principle: human embryonic stem cell derived red cell concentrates for clinical transfusion'. In this project scientists are working together to generate a limitless and infection-free supply of red blood cells in the laboratory from human embryonic stem cells for use in clinical blood transfusion.

CRM researchers Prof Marc Turner and Dr Lesley Forrester have played a pivotal role in the first project and are also heavily involved in the follow-up project.