The first image of the battlefield that comes to mind is death, blood, sadness and carnage. One might think that in war the most important things are water, food and bullets. However, blood is often overlooked, and it is something soldiers really don’t want to run out of on the frontlines. With many advances in battlefield medicine, a program launched by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2008 is starting to bear its fruits. Using a process called blood pharming, they hope to be able to provide military medics with an endless stream of O-negative blood, which is universally accepted.

The goal set by DARPA was to create a self-contained, synthetic platform that is able to cultivate red blood cells, while being able to withstand the grueling demands of the battlefields. Using a process called “pharming”, where organisms are genetically engineered to generate useful substances in large quantities. Hematopoietic cells, derived from umbilical cord-blood units was used to produce the blood and DARPA hopes to end blood shortages on the frontlines once and for all. This technique has been used by scientists for years, and initial samples have already been sent to the FDA for evaluation.