Each year, the lives of millions of people depend on critical blood transfusions, and the lives of million others are lost due to inadequate supply of blood and blood products, reports from the World Health Organizations have shown.

However, the problem of insufficient blood supplies might be solved soon, thanks to a new successful experiment reported by a team of researchers at Advanced Cell Technologies. Chief science office Robert Lanza reported that they’ve managed to recreate enough blood to fill several test tubes by using human embryonic stem cells.

The experiment successfully converted stem cells into red blood cells by exposing them to a chemical cocktail. The result were identical blood cells perfectly capable of carrying oxygen, and according to the scientists, they could obtain any blood type, even the rare ones, by simply using stem cells of that particular type.

This opens up extraordinary perspectives for the medical community, who might never have to face blood supply shortages that often stand in the way of saving a patient’s life. The authors of the study say that one day, the universal donor type of blood, O-negative, might become available in unlimited supply.

This is just a first step towards a very complex goal, and there are still a lot of things to be done. The red cells obtained in the lab have not yet been tested on animals or humans, so it still remains unknown whether the body’s immune system will tolerate them, or if they will be able to save lives.

There could be al lot of advantages to using lab blood for transfusions; among them would be a reduced risk of contacting diseases. Among the disadvantages, if these blood transfusions will prove to work, will be the high cost of producing enough quantities of red blood cells in the lab.