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Science

Blood Type: NULL 36

Posted by michael from the vampire's-bane dept.
slank writes: "Oxygent popped up in the latest (print) Wired magazine. It's a milky-looking synthetic oxygen-carrying substance that's intended to replace blood in some cases where transfusions would normally be necessary. This means less donor blood shortages and a lower risk of disease transmission due to contaminated blood. Oxygent also works with all blood types, so there's no chance of making blood type mistakes." Is anyone else thinking of Ash from Alien?
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Blood Type: NULL More

Blood Type: NULL

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  • This would be most useful in the situation an orderly friend witnessed, when a severe injury came in. The doctor demanded some huge quantity of blood, & when the nurse asked what type the doctor pointed out that it didn't matter. Patient did not survive, & probably wasn't expected to.

    Your brain doesn't like being deprived of oxygen. (In fact, it consumes a large proportion of your total calories too. Processing those calories requires O2.)

    Regarding the abuse topics above: Can't excess O2 be poisonous?
  • Obviously, the winners of an athletic event will now have to undergo a blood test rather than a urine test.

    In addition to testing for drugs, a new blood test is needed: "Is it blood?"

  • Apathetic? Try gay.

    Gay people aren't permitted to be candidates for blood donation because of our supposed "increased risk" of carrying STDs, especially HIV/AIDS. So even if I've just had an AIDS test yesterday, they won't let me donate blood.

    Check it out:

    http://www.cnn.com/2000/US/01/13 /gay.blood.donors/ [cnn.com]

    Besides, I'm deathly afraid of needles and prone to passing out.

    nebulo

  • There are actually a few more really rare antibodies. This would be a truly "null" blood substitute. (Assuming it is, that is).
  • You make a fundamental assumption here, and that is that blood is safe. Blood is not safe, the list of diseases that can be transferred through it is PHENOMINAL!

    Neither is there a whole lot of proof that blood transfusions are actually beneficial.

    Also, have you ever actually read the Bible? From what you say, it certainly sounds like you haven't. If you haven't, shutup.

  • Get a full transfusion, then when you get a cut, you'll bleed milky white, and everyone'll think you're a robot!
  • No, I mean thats really freaky, I want some :)

    On a more serious note I hope that this stuff can live up to its promises, this could help alot of ppl. Now the appathetic US public doesn't have to get their collectively lazy ass off the couch and donate blood.

    I hate Americans and I am one, the rest of the world must REALLY hate us. --Meenky

  • Oxygent carries *only* oxygen. It is intended for short term use only. If you were dependant on this stuff for a long spance of time your cells would starve to death and turn necrotic.
    This stuff is going to help lighten the demand for blood donations not eliminate it.
    -----
    If my facts are wrong then tell me. I don't mind.

  • Get a full transfusion, then when you get a cut, you'll bleed milky white, and everyone'll think you're a robot!

    Unfortunately, your body would keep producing red blood cells, so it would only be a matter of time before you'd bleed pink. While that might be ideal for a Democrat, I'd prefer green like money.

    Dave Walker

  • Those vampires that come to your office and ask you to donate blood will have to go find some other means of filling there day annoying people [possible take up jobs at department stores hosing down passer-bys with those high pressure perfume dispensers!!!]

    all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut
  • Especially when you don't clot and stop bleeding.
  • Now the appathetic US public doesn't have to get their collectively lazy ass off the couch and donate blood.

    If you don't like your neighbors, you can leave at any time.

    I know for a fact that lots of older (over 40) people stopped donatig blood regularly when the blood banks stopped extending the free blood to the families of donors.
  • Haven't there been several SlashDot articles on using liquid flourocarbons to cool CPU's?

    I wonder if you could do the same thing with one of these artificial blood products?

  • early 80's experiment (Score:3)

    by dlgree1 ( 200197 ) on Wednesday August 16, 2000 @09:46AM (#851462)
    In the middle 80's there was an series of experiments that followed the same guidlines. The scientests were looking for a chemical that could carry the oxygen to the cells that was not blood. At the time the best thing they found was a form of a flourocarbon that was liquod at room temperature. As I recall they drained the blood from a dog and replaced it with the flourocarbon and three days later they put the dogs blood back and the dog suffered no side effects. But them CFC's were found to be a carcinogyen (damn spelling) and the idea was droped due to the chemical symilarities. I guess they finally got over it because oxygent is a perflourocarbon.

    On a sidenote the stuff that they used in the abyss is also a oxygenated perflourocarbon emulsion and it really does exist. See here [scienceweb.org] for deatails on the early experiments.

    Also see here [sybd.com] under the technology heading for more info on reasearch into sythetic blood. Untill now PFC have been toxic which was a major downside to using them.
  • AFAIR, This stuff was developed in the early eighties for use in military trauma units.

    One of the problems was the long half-life of CHCs and CFCs in bodily processes. Once it is in, it stays there for quite some time.

    Since containers for these chemicals are required to have warning labels, even if the levels contained in them are in the parts per million range, what about the patient? The nurse would have adequate warning (read: labeling) if working with bottled liquids containing this stuff, what is the difference between that and handling bodily fluids? Where does the warning label go?

    I want mine on my rump...

  • Interesting idea, is designer-colored blood possible? That'd be neato, although it would probably make people more likely to cut themselves on purpose to show off.

  • I think fashion model waifs have already been using this product. It may explain how they keep so thin if they can't carry energy around their body. It also explains how they keep their nice Anemic and sickly look that make all the boys swoon.
  • But on the long term scale if someone's blood loss was great enough that 3/4 or more of the fluid in there body was Oxygent then wouldn't there be issues later when the body needs more nutrients(sp?)?
    I don't know how long it would take for this to happen. Can the body generate blood fast enough to prevent this??
    Or could the nutrient content that should have been in the blood be replaced with an IV?

    -----
    If my facts are wrong then tell me. I don't mind.

  • What is the potential for abuse of this? (Score:4)

    by OldHorton ( 198621 ) on Wednesday August 16, 2000 @10:13AM (#851467)
    I read the entire site about Oxygent and everywhere it keeps saying how it delivers oxygen to the cells much much more efficiently and quickly than normal blood cells. The first adverse effects occur 2 hours after infusion and that's just elevated body temperature. Oxygent will also thin out your blood due to its small overall size thus allowing for easier blood flow.

    My question is, just prior to an athletic event (or even an exam for that matter) you dose up on this stuff. It won't necessarily help with energy delivery but the extra oxygen that hits your muscles and brain cells will help extremely. Muscle fatigue occurs mostly because of lack of oxygen to the muscles after all.

    Remember that X-Files episode about people drilling holes in their skulls to allow better oxygen access to the brain and how that would enhance brain functions? Well, this stuff will do it for you with a big shot.

    If it can live up to what it claims, it could be really really interesting.
  • It should be compulsory to donate blood!

    No, it shouldn't. Before I joined the army (when I was 18) I successfully gave blood three times. When I was in basic training, they had a blood drive and I volunteered to donate again. Well, I stopped bleeding. Every time I've tried since then, I've stopped halfway through. Maybe my blood pressure is too low to pump blood. :P

    Anyone else had a bad experience with slow blood flow during a donation? They ever use that roller deal on the tubing to try and suck blood out of your arm? That thing HURTS.

    love,
    br4dh4x0r
  • I don't know that many people who can bring themselves to self-inflict...
  • from Aliens. Bishop was a much better android than Ash. Primarily becaus Lance Henricksen(Hendricksen) kicks boo tay as an actor.

    LK
  • Fluorinert. Yes. It's somewhat of a different chemistry (Fluorinert is optimized for non-reactivity, this stuff is optimized for oxygen loading and biocompatibility), but I think you could probably do it. AFAIK, anything that's not electrically conductive would work fine as a liquid CPU coolant, and most organic compounds are nonconducting.

    Of course, you wouldn't really *want* to do that, because this stuff will cost a lot more than a bottle of Fluorinert (since Fluorinert doesn't have to undergo medical safety testing), but I believe that you *could*.
  • Blood doping is a well known technique. Take blood samples from yourself, refine out a red rich mixture, and freeze it. Inject it back into yourself before the event. Eventually, your body absorbs them (or they just die, I forget), but for a while you have great aerobic transport.

    Of course, it is unethical and grounds for diqualification. The problem from a testing standpoint is that it is hard to distinguish from having trained at high altitudes, which is perfectly fine.

  • Get a full transfusion, then when you get a cut, you'll bleed milky white, and everyone'll think you're a robot!

    Sure. But you'd have problems before you got cut.

    I'm sure that this stuff is meant to fill up your bloodstream to avert the most immediate causes of corporal damage from excessive blood loss. But it's not a replacement.

    Nutrients are dissolved in your bloodstream, and they feed your cells. You'd very rapidly start to run out of energy. Your body temperature would drop, your heart rate would slow, and you'd die like a campfire with no wood.

    Your cells excrete carbon dioxide and other wastes, which are dissolved in your bloodstream and are disposed of by your kidneys and lungs. If, for example, the blood replacement doesn't dissolve CO2, it never osmoises through the cellular membranes, and your cells essentially suffocate.

    Does this stuff have a clotting mechanism, or are you going to bleed to death from a paper cut?

    And, your immune system is a blood-borne system. With no immune system, you'd be in exactly the same position as an acute AIDS patient.

    Either way, this is not a permanent replacement for blood, you're not going to bleed to death in designer colors, and I'm sure this stuff confers absolutely no benefits to your body except as a very temporary replacement in the case of an accident-induced blood shortage.

    I wonder how effectively the body will get rid of this stuff as it replaces it?

  • rh is the rhesus virus I'd imagine then (I always thought it had something to do with monkeys - -whayt do I know?)

    What are A and B against?
  • O negative blood is already "null" in that it doesn't carry the antibodies that A, B, and + (Rh) signify.
    --

  • Maybe... (Score:3)

    by Alik ( 81811 ) on Wednesday August 16, 2000 @10:53AM (#851477)
    As others have pointed out, this isn't a new idea. People have been trying for fluorocarbon-based blood substitutes since at least the 80s. So far, none have been clinically viable; they ended up costing too much, or having nasty side effects, or having no shelf life, or something along those lines.

    The manufacturers claim it's perfectly safe. Of course they will. The data they've collected is probably quite solid, too. There are two obvious problems:

    1) As other people have pointed out, previous attempts have turned out to be carcinogens.

    2) Some really nasty side-effects only show up in a small percentage of people and don't become apparent in clinical trials. Think about Viagra. Worked great in trials. When every other man in the country takes it, some guys with heart conditions die. No way to detect that in a standard study sample. I'd be willing to bet money that there are patients who will (for whatever reason) have violent and possibly life-threatening reactions to Oxygent.

    One of the neat things about this if it works, though, will be seeing how religions handle it. There are some groups (Jehovah's Witnesses come to mind) which do not accept blood transfusions because the Bible says people should not consume blood. This isn't really blood, so I'd think it should be OK, but I'm curious to see how those societies react. One could make an argument that it's "cheating", and God hates cheaters.
  • This stuff could be combined with blood plasma. Blood plasma is more readily available than whole blood, since donors have to wait 8 weeks to donate again after they've donated whole blood, but they only have to wait 3 days if they only give plasma.

  • >Can you tell I used to be a Hospital Corpsman in the US Navy? :-)

    Yes, from the lack of a sense of humor. Does the Navy surgically remove them from enlistees, or what?

    1), I was kidding.
    2)I wasn't referring to a complete replacement, rather, a supplementation to add a tint.

  • Useful for trauma, not for illness (Score:3)

    by EnderPax ( 173293 ) on Wednesday August 16, 2000 @11:25AM (#851480) Homepage
    I used to be an EMT, but am way out of certification, so don't take this as gospel, but...

    Most critical issue when assesing a patient: is he/she getting oxygen? So you check and clear the airway first. But then you have to make sure that once the oxygen is in the body, it is actually getting used by the body. So check the pulse and the blood pressure. If either are out of range, you've got trouble.

    At a scene or in the hospital, one of the most difficult things to deal with is loss of blood, especially if it is on a massive scale. If your patient is losing blood quickly, you've got to replace that liquid quickly. In Emergency Medicine circles, people talk about the Golden Hour. From when the blood pressure drops, you have about an hour to significantly help that person. If you stabilize the blood pressure in that hour (presuming no worse problems like cardiac arrest, cerebral events or blocked airway), patient's chances of full recovery increase significantly.

    In the field solutions? Well, if it's a pulse problem , you've got big issues, but they're usually solved by a defibrillator. If it's blood pressure, you've pretty much only got Mass pants to use. These increase blood pressure in the trunk of the body by squeezing the legs.

    Once you get to the hospital, you've got other options. One of the first things to do is to match blood type and start forcing blood into the body. The loss of volume (thus, the loss in oxygen-carrying capacity) must be made up. If you can't match blood types immediately, or the situation is particularly dire, you might manufacture blood pressure by injecting large amounts of relatively harmless saline.

    This product is interesting because it's essentially a more healthy version of saline. Where saline simply adds blood pressure (while not helping with the associated problem of loss of oxygen) this stuff could actually add volume and oxygen. A one-two punch. Very useful.

    --Pax
  • I think the poster was referring to Alien, Aliens, et al.
  • Adult humans have about 5 liters ~ 1 gallon+1pint
    By volume 40% RBCs, 60% Plasma (fluid)
    Function of blood
    transportation of 1)gas,2)nutients, 3) wastes, 4)hormones,5) regulate acid/base balance

    What's in blood
    1 Red Blood Cells (RBC -erythrocytes) - primary function= gas exchange and also have soluable enz for glycolysis (producing ATP which cells use for fuel)
    2) White blood cells (WBC - leukocytes) regulate immune system
    3) Platelets - function in blood coagulation
    4)Plasma the fluidy part of blood - 90% water, 9% organics, 1% ions
    Plasma proteins
    1) maintain oncotic pressure (albumin) - i.e help to maintain the fluid in the veins/arteries via osmosis
    2) contain proteins for the clotting cascade (fibrinogen)
    3) proteins used in the immune system (immunoglobulins)

    Probable prime uses for artificial blood
    1 Circulatory shock (i.e. trauma - leg cut off)
    maintain perfusion of vital organs (heart/brain/kidneys) with oxygen and provide volume to maintain pressure. Nutrients can be provided by glucose IV

    2 Bloody operations (orthopaedic/cardiovascular/liver transplants) - temporary volume replacement will serve to provide oxygenation and pressure to vital organs

    Problems - depending on how much blood is lost, 1)coagulation problems can occur - i.e.people stop clotting and start bleeding everywhere (intestines )mucous membranes), small scrapes). Basically act like hemopheliacs.. Rectified by plasma and platelet transfusions, not terribly urgent, but should be done soon.
    2) immune system depletion - possible short term increase in infection rate
    3)nutritional - cell starvation -as long as glucose is provided for food, vital organs should be ok, most/all tissues can make their own ATP

    I'm sure there are a host of other problems foreseeable, But the possiblity of an EMT/paramedic dropping an IV into some banged up guy in a MVA and keeping their pressure/oxygenation up will be a tremendous lifesaver.

    As far as total volume replacement by artificial blood goes, as long as they keep some glucose in the mix and the stuff doesn't gunk up the kidneys/lungs/gut, I could somebody staying alive for a few hours. A crapload of hormonal problems will probably kick in and do something nasty though.

    Just my 200 cents worth....
  • >Remember that X-Files episode about people drilling holes in their skulls to allow better oxygen access to
    >the brain and how that would >enhance brain functions? Well, this stuff will >it for you with a big shot.

    Check it out:
    http://www.trepan.com

  • Now the appathetic US public doesn't have to get their collectively lazy ass off the couch and donate blood.

    It should be compulsory to donate blood! Probably once every 5 years per person would be enough (gimme some stats) to keep the stocks high enough.

    I hate Americans and I am one, the rest of the world must REALLY hate us. --Meenky

    We Do!

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