Breakthrough on lab-grown blood cells from University of Cambridge scientists could aid regenerative therapies
A new way to produce human blood cells in the lab that mimics the process in natural embryos has been uncovered by University of Cambridge scientists.
They say it could help us understand blood formation during early human development, simulate blood disorders like leukaemia and produce long-lasting blood stem cells for transplants.
The researchers used human stem cells to create three-dimensional embryo-like structures that replicate aspects of very early human development, including the production of blood stem cells.
Human blood stem cells - also called hematopoietic stem cells - are immature cells that can develop into any type of blood cell, including the red blood cells that carry oxygen and various types of white blood cells that are key to our immune system.
The self-organising embryo-like structures, which the scientists have named ‘hematoids’, begin producing blood after about two weeks in the lab, which mimics the development process in human embryos.
They cannot develop into real human embryos, as they lack several embryonic tissues, the supporting yolk sac and placenta.
Dr Jitesh Neupane, a researcher at the university’s Gurdon Institute and joint first author of the study published in Cell Reports, said: “It was an exciting moment when the blood red colour appeared in the dish – it was visible even to the naked eye.
“Our new model mimics human foetal blood development in the lab. This sheds light on how blood cells naturally form during human embryogenesis, offering potential medical advances to screen drugs, study early blood and immune development, and model blood disorders like leukaemia.”
Prof Azim Surani, of the Gurdon Institute and senior author of the paper, said: “This model offers a powerful new way to study blood development in the early human embryo. Although it is still in the early stages, the ability to produce human blood cells in the lab marks a significant step towards future regenerative therapies - which use a patient’s own cells to repair and regenerate damaged tissues.”
Dr Geraldine Jowett, also of the Gurdon Institute and co-first author of the study, said: “Hematoids capture the second wave of blood development that can give rise to specialised immune cells or adaptive lymphoid cells, like T cells, opening up exciting avenues for their use in modelling healthy and cancerous blood development.”