Science
Breakthrough could end blood shortages
Copenhagen, Denmark | April 02, 2007 12:01:13 AM IST
An international research team led by a Danish scientist has developed a process to change blood types, which could spell the end of blood shortages. Henrik Clausen of the University of Copenhagen and his group used bacterial enzymes to turn blood types A, B and AB into the universal donor, type O blood, The Times of London reported. Writing in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the researchers explain how an enzyme found in fungi can be used as a kind of biological scissors to cut sugar molecules from the surface of red blood cells. It is the sugar molecules, or antigens, in blood types A, B and AB that trigger what can be a fatal immune response if a patient is given the wrong blood type. Type O blood doesn't have the sugar molecules and won't cause an immune response if given to people with other blood types. People inherit blood type from their parents' genes. (UPI)
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