ACT says it has found key to limitless blood supply

Advanced Cell Technology may be running out of cash, but the biotech still knows how to garner headlines around the world. The company is reporting that it has been able to gin quantities of red blood cells from human embryonic stem cells. And that could create a virtually limitless supply of blood--as well as a possible pathway to the company's survival.

While others have made red blood cells from ESCs, ACT and researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Mayo Clinic have created a way to make billions of red blood cells. A six-well plate of ESCs spawned 10 billion to 100 billion red blood cells. And that could eventually make routine blood shortages a thing of the past. Dr. George Daly from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute told the Boston Globe that this new work constituted a "very nice proof-of-principle." But he cautioned that there's a deeply entrenched system in place for gaining blood supplies.

About 16 people still work for the cash-strapped ACT, which raised $250,000 this month from a tech licensing deal with BioTime.

--read the article [1] in the Boston Globe

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