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Originally Posted by JustMe
How are blood fractions stored, are donors necessary for blood fractions or can they be extracted from other sources rather than pints of whole blood? I mean albumin and other fractions that are often passed quite naturally from mother to feotus in the womb.
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I'm not quite sure what it is that you want to know. If you are asking whether blood fractions such as albumin are obtained from any source other than stored donor blood, the answer is that many fractions can now be "manufactured" by genetic engineering technology. There are, for instance, several companies that are marketing a recombinant human albumin for therapeutic and diagnostic usage. Here are a couple of them:
http://www.deltabiotechnology.com/
http://www.newcenturypharm.com/products.htm
However, while the small quantity of albumin in these preparations is suitable for diagnostic procedures and for use as a stabilizer for certain drugs, the larger volumes required when used as a resuscitation fluid are still generally derived from pooled donor plasma. The albumin is separated from the plasma by cold ethanol fractionation and the bottles (or bags) are usually held for at least two weeks at 30–32 degrees centigrade and examined for evidence of bacterial contamination before being made ready for clinical use.