Scientists manage to turn A blood type into O

Scientists believe that they have found a way to turn the A blood type into the universal O type, which is often needed in emergency transfusions.

In laboratory tests, they used the enzymes made by gut bacteria to efficiently transform the A blood type into O.

Scientists at the University of British Columbia announce that clinical research might begin soon and explain that they've managed to use gut bacteria enzymes to remove the antigens from the membranes of red blood cells, present in the A blood type, but not in the O type.

Their removal is very important, because antigens can cause a fatal immune response if introduced to the organism of a person which doesn't have the same blood type. This means that the immune system of a recipient with the A blood type will be tricked into “thinking” that they have the O type and won't “attack” it.

In emergency situations, there's often very little time to check what type the recipient has, which is why transfusion services always need to have sufficient amounts of type O blood, it is emphasized on science portals.

blood type A

blood type O

University of British Columbia

blood types

turning blood type A into blood type O