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back to article UK boffins to breed syntho-blood from human embryos

Led by the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service, a team of British scientists is planning a three-year research project that seeks to fashion synthetic human blood from embryonic stem cells. It's a welcome announcement. The synthetic human blood biz needs a transfusion of its own. Earlier this month, a former synthetic- …

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  1. Yorkshirepudding
    Joke

    vampires

    i can see it now

    "i cant believe its not blood"

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  2. Luther Blissett

    It's a welcome announcement?

    Industrial scale abortion as an input to the manufacture of blood.

    Quite a lot of metaphors turning into reality.

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  3. Dr Patrick J R Harkin

    Hang on...

    Isn't this how one of the Blade films starts?

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Frankensteins

    Modern medicine eh?

    "embryos originally harvested for in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments."

    So potential human beings - PEOPLE - in fact, just given a willing uterus.

    I don't agree with the Pope or Dubya on much, but on this sort of shit they're spot on.

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  5. bird5

    Legalize Adult Stem Cells

    There is a group of physicians, patients and other interested people working together to get treatment with adult stem cells legalized in the U.S. as it should be. Please ask your family and friends to sign up ("JOIN"), and get as many doctors to sign up as well.

    http://www.stemcelldocs.org/Media_Room.html

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  6. Gaz
    Flame

    @Frankensteins

    Potential != Actual

    You could argue the glint in your parents' eyes was a potential human being. A transfer ready IVF embryo is typically made up of a tiny handful of cells not even in the double figure range: http://www.advancedfertility.com/8-cell.htm

    A tiny bunch of undifferentiated cells is not a "person". The difficulty of course is in deciding when the cells in an embryo become more than the sum of their parts and thus a person.

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