Eric Shine
Engineering Biomedical Systems
July 31, 2008
Artificial Blood
Tissue engineering is a broad field of engineering that deals with a combination of cells, and engineering methods that are used to improve of replace biological functions. An application of tissue that could help improves or replaces biological functioning would be the creation of artificial blood. Blood is a very complicated tissue. Blood contains two main components plasma and the formed elements. To add further complexity the formed elements are made up of RBCs (red blood cells), WBCs (white blood cells), and platelets. Along with blood being the transportation system of the body, blood comes in four different types: A, B, AB, and O. Since blood Artificial blood would help traumatic brain injuries, which is a leading cause in accidental death. Even though blood is very complex engineers and scientist have made a type of artificial blood called Oxycyte. Oxycyte is a revolutionary artificial blood because it can carry 50 times more oxygen than human blood. This synthetic blood is step in making blood transfusions and other types of blood related problems a thing of the past.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2006-11/better-blood
http://health.howstuffworks.com/artificial-blood1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tissue_engineering#Examples_of_tissue_engineering_technologies
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