WEBVTT - Could Science Create a Better Blood Supply?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>Lauren bog Obam here. For years, scientists have been toiling

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<v Speaker 1>away in laboratories trying to make blood better, or maybe

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<v Speaker 1>more accurately better for more people. That's one of the

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<v Speaker 1>things that the Withers Research Group at the University of

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<v Speaker 1>British Columbia is working on pretty much every day. You

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<v Speaker 1>may know the basics of blood types. Humans have various kinds.

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<v Speaker 1>If you need a transfusion, say you're injured in an accident,

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<v Speaker 1>or you're in the operating room awaiting some procedure, you

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<v Speaker 1>need the right type of blood, either A, B, A B,

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<v Speaker 1>or O, and either positive or negative. You need either

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<v Speaker 1>your exact blood type or type O negative, which is

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<v Speaker 1>considered universal and acceptable by all. According to the American

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<v Speaker 1>Red Cross, a blood transfusion is needed every two seconds

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<v Speaker 1>in the United States, and every year four point five

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<v Speaker 1>million lives are saved by safe transfusions. So Type OH

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<v Speaker 1>is in high demand and and in short supply. So

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<v Speaker 1>scientists have been fiddling with ways to convert Type A

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<v Speaker 1>blood into Type OH that would solve a lot of

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<v Speaker 1>supply and demand problems, and they're getting closer every day.

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<v Speaker 1>For more than four years, the Wither's lab on the

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<v Speaker 1>Vancouver campus of UBC has been just sciencing the heck

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<v Speaker 1>out of the challenge. Researchers there have been experimenting with

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<v Speaker 1>different approaches to strip certain sugar molecules from the surface

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<v Speaker 1>of type A red blood cells, effectively turning the cells

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<v Speaker 1>into Type O which do not contain those sugar molecules.

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<v Speaker 1>These molecules, called antigens, are what makes transfusions of different

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<v Speaker 1>types of blood problematic. Type B blood, for example, contains

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<v Speaker 1>antibodies that will attack those sugars on Type A blood

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<v Speaker 1>cells if the bloods mix and vice versa, but having

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<v Speaker 1>no antigens, Type O blood is not attacked by other

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<v Speaker 1>blood types antibodies, which is why Type O is in

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<v Speaker 1>such great demand. The answer to ridding Type A blood

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<v Speaker 1>of its antigens, first proposed and demonstrated in the nineteen eighties,

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<v Speaker 1>was to use an enzyme that would in effect eat

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<v Speaker 1>those sugars. Wather's and his team building on that we're

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<v Speaker 1>searching for a better enzyme, they turned inward. In a

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<v Speaker 1>manner of speaking, they turned ultimately to the human gut.

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<v Speaker 1>Wather's explained, what you're doing is you're essentially choosing an

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<v Speaker 1>environment it's likely to contain enzymes to do the job

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<v Speaker 1>you want, and then you try to isolate your genes

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<v Speaker 1>and ultimately your enzymes from that environment. One of the

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<v Speaker 1>key steps is, in my mind, is actually choosing your

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<v Speaker 1>environment in the first place. Is it going to be

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<v Speaker 1>a bunch of soil, some ocean water, what's it going

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<v Speaker 1>to be. Wathers and his group considered places where blood

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<v Speaker 1>and bacteria would come in contact, say in mosquitoes or

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<v Speaker 1>vampire bats or leeches. Wathers said, but the complication is

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<v Speaker 1>that it's only primates, that is, apes and ourselves that

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<v Speaker 1>have the a BO blood system, So mosquitoes et cetera

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<v Speaker 1>would have to be feeding on human blood, and none

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<v Speaker 1>of my graduate students seemed keen to volunteer. The researchers

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<v Speaker 1>settled on the human gut to the gastro intestinal walls,

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<v Speaker 1>where bacteria have been found to feed on similar sugars.

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<v Speaker 1>The theory was that they could take human DNA from

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<v Speaker 1>a stool sample and isolate the genes that encode the

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<v Speaker 1>bacteria to do their sugar eating thing in the gut.

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<v Speaker 1>Then they could see if that bacteria would do the

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<v Speaker 1>job on the sugars on type A blood cells, and

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<v Speaker 1>fortunately for them, human poop is in relatively great abundance.

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<v Speaker 1>After screening, cataloging, and sequencing the DNA, the researchers finally

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<v Speaker 1>found a combination of enzymes that worked which effectively stripped

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<v Speaker 1>the sugars from type A blood. Their findings were announced

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<v Speaker 1>in June of twenty nineteen in the journal Nature Microbiology.

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<v Speaker 1>Postdoc student Peter Rathfield, the lead author on the paper,

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<v Speaker 1>said in a release, this will really drive forward the

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<v Speaker 1>option for blood banks to manage the blood supply as

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<v Speaker 1>soon as we can be sure it's safe. Testing to

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<v Speaker 1>establish that the enzymes don't strip the blood of anything

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<v Speaker 1>else and that the enzymes get all of the antigens

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<v Speaker 1>from the surface of type A blood cells continues with

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<v Speaker 1>He said, definitely, the research is still ongoing. One part

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<v Speaker 1>is doing all these things on safety. The other part

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<v Speaker 1>is trying to look further to see if there's even

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<v Speaker 1>better enzymes, and also to look out for better enzymes

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<v Speaker 1>for converting B type blood. We focused on A because

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<v Speaker 1>that's the most challenging one before, and partly because there

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<v Speaker 1>are reasonable enzymes for B. The Withers group also is

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<v Speaker 1>perfecting new methods of screening DNA at a smaller volume.

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<v Speaker 1>All of it, maybe soon could help make blood shortages

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<v Speaker 1>a thing of the past. Today's episode was written by

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<v Speaker 1>John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is

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<v Speaker 1>a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For

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<v Speaker 1>more in this and lots of other bloody awesome topics,

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