Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar scientists create blood in the laboratory

Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q) have made a breakthrough which could lead to personalized blood and heart tissue being created in a laboratory.

Working with colleagues from the Ansary Stem Cell Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, researchers in the laboratory of Dr Arash Rafii Tabrizi at WCM-Q in Doha postulated that endothelial cells – the cells that line the walls of blood vessels – are responsible for organ development.

Dr Rafii Tabrizi, whose work has been funded by Qatar National Research Fund, said: “We hypothesized that the endothelial cells are the masterminds of organ development and different organs have different endothelial cells that express different and specific factors called angiocrine factors that lead to the development and function of the organ.”

To test the theory, Dr Tabrizi and his team isolated endothelial cells and forced the expression of transcription factors using DNA vectors.

After 20 days, the cells began to multiply and were essentially transformed into hematopoietic stem cells, which are the basis for all types of blood cells, including red blood cells, platelets, and white blood cells, which are a vital part of the immune system.

Dr Tabrizi, who is Associate Professor of Genetic Medicine in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at WCM-Q, said that the next step would be to translate the research to a human model, to test whether the findings can be translated to tackle different human diseases.

Dr Tabrizi said: “If you have leukemia, for example, we would retrieve your endothelial cells and we could transform that into blood. It would be an unlimited personal source of blood for each individual. However, it is too early at this stage to make these assumptions in the absence of concrete human data”

Importantly the power of the endothelium to support cellular differentiation for blood cells is also successful with cardiac cell regeneration. By combining endothelial cells with cardiomyocytes – the heart’s muscle cells – the researchers were able to create muscle cells in a petri dish that beat together in a regular rhythm, similar to endogenous cardiomyocytes.

Dr Jennifer Pasquier, Research Associate in Genetic Medicine at WCM-Q who performed these experiments said: “Some organs function to secrete substances so, for example pancreatic cells would have to be sensitive to blood sugar levels and secrete insulin. But for cardiac cells we want them to integrate and beat in synchrony with each other. The problem is, if you transplant cardiac cells into your heart and then they beat at a different rate from the other cells, this would be the catastrophic for the individual.”