From Lab To Crisis Zone: Dipanjan Pan’s Mission To Develop Artificial Blood

India-West News Desk

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA — For trauma patients, particularly those in remote or conflict-ridden areas, access to safe blood transfusions can mean the difference between life and death. Blood loss remains the leading cause of death for individuals aged 1 to 46, with many fatalities occurring simply because blood is not available quickly enough.

Dipanjan Pan, professor at Penn State, is working to change that by leading the development of freeze-dried synthetic blood—a breakthrough that could transform emergency medicine.

Pan, the Dorothy Foehr Huck & J. Lloyd Chair Professor in Nanomedicine at Penn State, recently secured a four-year, $2.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to advance the next generation of synthetic blood. His research aims to create a viable alternative to donated blood, which requires specialized storage and processing, making it inaccessible in many critical situations.

Pan’s journey in synthetic blood research began more than a decade ago with the development of ErythroMer, an artificial blood product designed to replicate the oxygen-carrying function of red blood cells. Co-invented with Dr. Allan Doctor, a professor of pediatrics and director of the Center for Blood Oxygen Transport and Hemostasis at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.  

The new NIH-backed project seeks to refine these efforts further. Pan and his team plan to develop synthetic materials that closely resemble red blood cells and evaluate their effectiveness in animal models.

The research is a collaborative effort involving Doctor, who will analyze the oxygen release mechanisms; Dr. Paul Buehler, a professor of pediatrics and pathology at UMSOM, who will examine how the synthetic blood circulates and is distributed in the body; and Dr. Narayana Aluru, a computational scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, who will assist in designing and testing potential products using advanced computational modeling.

“The ultimate goal is to develop safe, dried oxygen therapeutics envisioned for use when stored red blood cells are unavailable, undesirable, or in short supply,” Pan explained.

Pan’s extensive expertise in nanomedicine and biomaterials makes him a leading figure in this pioneering field. Originally from India, he earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology in 2002 and completed his postdoctoral research at Washington University in St. Louis.