For decades, scientists have tried to create a safe alternative to blood.

Dr. Vibhudutta Awasthi  University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

Now, a University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center researcher may have found a new way to deliver oxygen to the body and sustain life when donated blood supplies are low or not readily available as with a battlefield injury.

Vibhudutta Awasthi, Ph.D., an associate professor at the OU College of Pharmacy, is developing a nano-sized carrier of hemoglobin that may be safer than other attempted blood substitutes.

Hemoglobin is the red molecule inside blood cells that carries oxygen around the body.  Outside the protective shell of the red blood cell, however, hemoglobin can be toxic, producing free radicals that harm organs.

So Awasthi has found a way to create a miniaturized delivery system – a microscopic capsule of sorts – for hemoglobin. He is encasing it in tiny liposomes that can then carry oxygen throughout the body. Each liposome is about one-thirtieth the size of a human red blood cell. The product is called NeoLEH.

“If hemoglobin is encapsulated inside of a nanocarrier, you are creating a barrier against the oxidative toxicity of hemoglobin,” Awasthi said.

He explained because the NeoLEH is so much smaller than a red blood cell, it can more efficiently deliver oxygen to the tiniest blood vessels. Oxygen is essential to keeping tissue, organs, the brain and ultimately the patient alive.

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The hemoglobin used to create NeoLEH is organic, not synthesized.  It’s purified and concentrated from red blood cells that have expired in blood banks and would otherwise be discarded.

Awasthi recently was awarded a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to work on his artificial oxygen carrier over the next four years.

If successful, Awasthi’s process could dramatically change the way patients dying of blood loss are treated by emergency medical technicians, on the battlefield or when blood supplies are low.

Awasthi said NeoLEH would not be a permanent replacement for human blood, but could keep a patient alive for several hours, or even several days, until a transfusion could occur.

For example, a soldier wounded in a remote area could be injected with the artificial blood to keep him alive until help arrives.  Or an EMT could transfuse the substance into patients who might otherwise die before they reach a hospital. NeoLEH could even be used during surgeries that produce a lot of bleeding, Awasthi said.

He added the ideal blood substitute must have a long shelf life, work for all blood types, be free of pathogens and have minimal side effects. It also must be cost-effective when manufactured in large amounts.

“It would be a monumental advance,” Awasthi said. “It would change the field of medicine.”

Media Contact:
Susan Simpson – (405) 271-2323

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In Attendance:

William Tierney, M.D.
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center