Review: In vitro generation of red blood cells for transfusion medicine: Progress, prospects and challenges

Esmond Lee1, Jaichandran Sivalingam2, Zhong Ri Lim2

  • 1Stem Cell Group, Bioprocessing Technology Institute, Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore 138668, Republic of Singapore; Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA 94305, USA.

Biotechnology Advances
|October 2, 2018
PubMed

In vitro generation of red blood cells (RBCs) has the potential to circumvent the shortfalls in global demand for blood for transfusion applications. The conventional approach for RBC generation has been from differentiation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) derived from cord blood, adult bone marrow or peripheral blood. More recently, RBCs have been generated from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) as well as from immortalized adult erythroid progenitors. In this review, we highlight the recent advances to RBC generation from these different approaches and discuss the challenges and new strategies that can potentially make large-scale in vitro generation of RBCs a feasible approach.

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