Stem cells may bring bottomless blood bank

ACT says it made billions of viable cells

Scientists at Advanced Cell Technology Inc., the Worcester stem cell company that is running out of cash, reported yesterday that they have created large numbers of red blood cells from human embryonic stem cells.

The company portrayed the work as a key step toward creating a limitless supply of blood for transfusions - and a possible lifeline for the firm, known by the acronym ACT. It has been scrambling to find investors.

"It's really a big opportunity for us, and a big break for early applications of stem cells," said Dr. Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of ACT and coauthor of a paper that was published online in the journal Blood.

Embryonic stem cells have been the subject of widespread scientific interest and social controversy. But the research has proved difficult, even as it continues to offer the tantalizing possibility of growing replacement tissues for patients.

Other scientists had shown that red blood cells could be created from embryonic stem cells. The signal accomplishment of ACT, working with researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Mayo Clinic, was proving that billions of cells could be produced.

Such a supply could be a useful solution to the nation's chronic problems with blood shortages and ease worries about contamination.

Dr. George Q. Daley, a principal faculty member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute who was not involved in the work, cautioned that the study won't change the way people get blood transfusions in the near future. But he called the paper a "very nice proof-of-principle," demonstrating it is possible to create clinically relevant cells from stem cells.

The ACT scientists used four human embryonic stem cell lines to create the red blood cells. Other researchers had previously created red blood cells from such cells, but Lanza and his colleagues got high yields - between 10 billion and 100 billion red blood cells from a six-well plate of embryonic stem cells.

They said the cells were able to transport oxygen like normal blood cells and up to 65 percent appeared to mature fully.

The next step will be to transfuse the blood into animals to see how the cells function in living beings. Eventually, the company aims to try transfusions in people.

That work could take years, but for now, ACT needs funding. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last month, the company said it did not have enough cash to continue operating past July 31 without cuts; since then, it has been subsisting "paycheck to paycheck," Lanza said. "We've been raising small amounts of money and working on larger deals."

This month, the company said it had raised $250,000 by licensing its technology to a subsidiary of BioTime Inc., a California company now run by ACT's former chief executive, Michael West. ACT closed a laboratory it had set up in Alameda, Calif., this year. About 16 people still work for the company.

The company had pinned some of its hopes on its blood research.

Late last year, ACT applied for a $5.7 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has been searching for a way to generate a supply of blood for use on the battlefield. But Lanza said that funding prospects have been grim under the Bush administration, which has restricted federal funding to existing embryonic stem cell lines.

Even if funding problems are solved, the researchers could face bigger, more practical obstacles.

Daley pointed out that creating a substitute blood supply could be a hard sell in a world where a well understood source of blood exists - from people who voluntarily roll up their sleeves.

"Here's the challenge: You would have to make the test tube production of red blood cells economically competitive with a huge ingrained industry of blood transfusions," Daley said. "I think the safety issues are significant, but surmountable. My main concern is the economic issues."

Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com.