The Pentagon recently announced the introduction of artificial blood for the military forces of the U.S. Army. Timely transfusion of blood is often lifesaving in the military. This development is also of a great importance to global health. Given the importance, complexity and high cost of research and development, the first who could address the problem was the military. The artificial blood is being developed in a biotechnological company in Ohio, which has already received the approval of the first prototypes. According to official sources at the Pentagon, properties of the artificial blood cells and plasma will be virtually indistinguishable from those of normal blood.

There are several major problems associated with use of donated blood, – it is perishable, it has to be of a proper blood type and it has to be stored in place where it may be needed or delivered to often remote and not easily accessible places. In the case of an artificial blood, all these problems can be easily solved. The Pentagon has estimated that artificial blood would cost 4 times less than donated blood.

Organ replacement, regenerative surgery and implantation of prosthetic body parts (such as blood vessels, cochlear implant, erection implants, limbs, liver, eye, ear, lungs, pancreas, bladder, ovaries, trachea, bone joints, dental implants, heart valves, path-makers, etc.) becomes a common procedure in medical clinics. Recently, scientists designed new type of artificial heart that does not beat allowing blood to flow continuously, without pulses. Previous models of artificial heart included moving parts that had to contract more than a 100,000 times a day and often failed. This new device was first tested on animals and recently implanted into a human patient.

The patient who agreed to remove his own heart and replace it with artificial one had no chance to survive with his own failing heart, and no other method of treatment could give him a chance to survive. The patient lived with this artificial heart for five weeks and then died of complications unrelated to heart surgery. Interestingly, the patient could talk, breath and eat as a normal person, the only difference was that he did not have a heart bit and appeared in state of coma on vital signs monitors.