BALTIMORE -- As the country struggles with an ongoing blood shortage, a doctor in Baltimore is leading a new research project to create artificial blood.
It could mean the difference between life and death during an emergency.
"There's about 20,000 people a year who bleed to death before they can be brought to the hospital," said Dr. Allan Doctor, a pediatrics professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "This is in the U.S. alone."
Dr. Doctor said about 70% to 80% of them could have survived if they'd gotten blood, but "it's very hard to get natural blood out to point of injury because it has a limited shelf life, and can only be out of refrigeration for a matter of hours before its performance begins to degrade."
He plans to use $46 million in federal funding to research and develop a blood replacement that can be used in emergencies for critical injuries.
"What we need is a blood product that can withstand extreme environmental conditions for extended periods so that medics can carry it with them out into the field," he said. "Or ambulances can carry it out to accident scenes."
Dr. Doctor says this product could be a game changer for the military, allowing a wounded soldier to get a transfusion within 30 minutes of getting hurt, and even in civilian life.
"They would be able to give a transfusion even inside an accident, a car, before someone was even extracted," he said.
He plans to test how effective this could be in treating complex injuries, including shock and traumatic brain injury.
"It's not designed to replace blood where blood is available, but to make blood therapy, or transfusion therapy, available where blood is not an option."
This will be a four-year research project. Once a blood product is developed, Dr. Doctor says they'll focus on how to produce it to scale, package it and make it easy to use in the field.
Sina Gebre-Ab joined the WJZ team in May 2022. Born and raised in Baltimore, she's thrilled to be back home, co-anchoring WJZ at 9 and reporting.