Students at the Milwaukee School of Engineering say they are working on a possible solution to blood shortages that we have seen in Milwaukee County lately.

The school is calling this discovery groundbreaking and they believe it could potentially change the blood industry in the future.

Students in the bio-molecular engineering program here at MSOE have been working on creating red blood cells for the past several years.

This year seniors working on the project have made significant progress.

They’ve successfully created cells that are the exact size and shape of red blood cells.

The blood cells are a universal blood type and can be used by anyone including those with religious restrictions.

Students also say there is a longer shelf life, which means supplies can be available  during shortages and in emergency situations.

There’s still some testing that needs to be done, but students say this really is a breakthrough for a project that almost never happened.

“It’s definitely been wonderful to work on this project; it’s been a great experience. The original team discovered this bound-con shape of the capsules by accident. So it’s really fortunate that we were able to find this and be able to make progress on it over the years, said MSOE student and project manager Sydney Stephens.

MSOE was recently awarded a $50,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for the project. They’ve used that money for a patent, and hope it can be commercialized but they say that’s still a few years away.