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Indian American gets $2.7mn grant to develop next gen of synthetic blood
Dipanjan Pan and his team of researchers say they are getting closer to mimicking ‘Mother Nature’.
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Nandika Chand - Wed, 02, Apr 2025
- 07:30 EDT
- 141
Dipanjan Pan is leading a team of researchers to develop nano-RBC. / Penn State
Blood loss is the leading cause of death in trauma patients between the ages of 1 and 46 years, primarily because they cannot access safe blood sources quickly enough. To address this critical issue, Indian American Dipanjan Pan, the Dorothy Foehr Huck & J. Lloyd Chair Professor in Nanomedicine at Penn State, and his multi-institutional team are developing freeze-dried synthetic blood as a potential solution.
The team has been awarded a $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to advance their research on a blood substitute prototype called Nano-RBC. This prototype, designed to mimic red blood cells, is based on a deformable nanoparticle capable of carrying oxygen.
Pan and his team have previously developed ErythroMer, an artificial blood product that replicates key physiological properties of red blood cells, including their ability to bind and release oxygen. This earlier research received more than $14 million in NIH funding.
Pan emphasized that while nature is difficult to replicate, his team is making significant strides. He noted that survival rates increase dramatically when patients receive a transfusion before excessive blood loss occurs. However, in rural or war-torn areas, the lack of specialized storage facilities makes traditional blood transfusions unfeasible. This underscores the urgent need for an artificial oxygen carrier that can serve as a substitute for banked blood in such settings.
Describing artificial blood as the "Holy Grail" of trauma medicine, Pan reiterated the team's goal: to develop a safe, dried oxygen therapeutic for situations where stored blood is unavailable, undesirable, or in short supply. The researchers plan to create new materials that mimic red blood cells and test their functionality in animal models.
“The inventiveness of materials researchers in health and medicine is limitless, and we’re demonstrating that in this ambitious and highly collaborative project,” Pan told Pennsylvania State University.
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