Sunday, May 8, 2011

Synthetic Blood Saves Australian Womans Life.

True Blood, aka the hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier HBOC-201 is, in a word (or two), artificial blood. It delivers oxygen to your squishy organs. And, unlike real blood, it can be stored for years and doesn't require matching blood types.

After years of working pretty well in clinical trials, it's now saved a life for the first the time. The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne brought 33-year-old Tamara Coakley back from a car wreck so brutal it left just a liter of blood in her body. Her spinal cord was almost severed, her lungs collapsed, her skull was fractured, several ribs were broken, as were her cheekbone and an elbow, and her spleen was ruptured. Her religion prevented real blood from being used, so 10 units of True Blood was rushed in and saved her life.

35 comments:

  1. sounds interesting... what an age we live in!

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  2. Wow that's incredible, advances in medicine get more amazing every year.

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  3. Incredible story my friend! good post!

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  4. Synthethic blood, now that's incredible. I'm glad it saved her life

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  5. thats so crazy! lovely to a life being saved

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  6. Happy to hear she was saved

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  7. props to the scientists who developed it.

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  8. She's lucky they had it, otherwise she would have faced a tough decision between religion and life.

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  9. No one has made a True Blood HBO reference yet? Okay, well now they all will seem unoriginal.

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  10. Lol @ CPH was waiting for that

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  11. Normally, I am annoyed with those who would rather die and have something as simple as a blood transfusion. This time, they served a huge clinical purpose! I am so conflicted.

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  12. That's amazing, imagine if loss of blood is not a big of deal in hospitals a few years from now.

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  13. Medical technology blows my mind! Love the blog Follow'd.

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  14. Good to see technology being put to good use instead of gimmicks and useless gadgets.

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  15. Wow thats awesome stuff! Lucky they had something they could use when her religion was stopping them from using blood

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  16. that is incredible! great story

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  17. What kind of religion prevents real blood transfusions??

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  18. Wow this could be really useful!

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  19. interesting. thanks for the post mate

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  20. I love hearing stuff like this. Reminds me that we're living in the future.

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  21. This is incredible. Thanks for sharing such pertinent information!

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  22. Super lucky. I figured she woulda just been out of luck cause of the religion o_o

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  23. Wow, Im glad they could save her life!

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  24. I gotta get me some of that Synthethic blood.

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  25. I'm glad they survived, even if they should probably reconsider their faith if sticking with it could cost their life

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  26. this post has everything. i feel horrified at the thought of being in that girl's position and indestructible at the same time.

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  27. Sounds like the movie daybreakers.

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  28. Synthetic blood will save many more in the future. I'm not familiar with the technology behind it but it seems like we would have created this long, long ago.

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  29. Going to look past her religion.. it's a huge step for science to see that this works! Not known to the tech either, but I hope there wont be any bad side effects for her.

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