Synthetic red blood cells mimic natural ones, and have new abilities

Lance Armstrong had these 10 years ago.

We’ll see

I worked on a similar project in 2000, one of many ongoing at that time and since then, trying to develop an “off the shelf” RBC or hemoglobin substitute.

None has been successful ultimately in delivering a product, but each “failed” study/project brings us closer to an eventual solution.

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Absolutely ! Trial and error is the most fundamental method of problem solving. We'll get there !

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More "errors" need to be published.

There is tremendous waste (time, money, hard resources) in research redundancy because "failed" projects are not published/presented (outside of drug trials).

I was working on HBOC (hemoglobin-based oxygen carrier), and our lab was one of 5 in the US working on it at the time (at least that I was aware of). There was almost zero communication among the groups.

In impromptu informal conversations at different national meetings and conferences, I'd talk to other researches at these different institutions. I say something like "we tried X, Y, and Z to try to normalize the oxygen dissociation curve, but it didn't work" and I'd get responses like "oh yeah, we tried X and Z too...no luck".

So you have 2 separate labs sinking hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars in duplicated projects

publication bias is a bitch

I tell people all the time studies that show nothing are still very important

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I tell people all the time studies that show nothing are still very important

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In some cases just as important. Think about how many times a failed research path was repeated because the information that "this will not work" wasn't published?