Manufacturing Red Blood Cells for Transfusion: How and why?

In the UK, the presence of the Blood Transfusion Services and the availability of blood on demand are taken for granted. However, there are still issues in maintaining sufficient supply, controlling the possible risk from transmission of infectious agents and ensuring compatibility between donor and recipient blood groups. There remains an unmet and increasing demand for blood worldwide, with the UK alone using around 2.2 million units of blood per year.

Human embryonic stem cells (hES) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) can be cultured and maintained in an undifferentiated (or pluripotent) state indefinitely. They retain the ability to generate nearly all of the cells and tissues of the body and could be used to help meet the clinical demand for red blood cells. A collaborative research team from the University of Glasgow, Heriot-Watt University, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Dundee and the SNBTS has been working on developing and scaling up a process to produce red blood cells in suspension culture from human embryonic stem cells, induced pluripotent stem cells derived from volunteers with an O negative blood group and cord blood CD34+ stem cells.

The work presented here will describe some of the biological, engineering and regulatory challenges associated with scale-up and purification of the cell culture used to produce the large numbers of red blood cells necessary for potential clinical supply.