Oxygen delivery during extreme anemia with ultra-pure earthworm hemoglobin.

There’s life in the old dog yet! Although artificial oxygen carriers seemed to disappear out of sight from anemia research, a new approach with hemoglobin from the earthworm yields promising results for the development of a new family of artificial oxygen carriers. Elmer and coworkers report that a hemoglobin solution generated from Lumbricus terrestris increases blood O2-carrying capacity without endangering the microcirculation. Although the hemoglobin solution used is far from clinical use, this paper presents a possible direction for the development of innovative artificial oxygen carriers.

– Jens Meier