Today's interesting fact has to do with Blood Cells.

Most people know that there are four basic types of blood cells, A, B, AB and O, and that they come either RH positive or RH negative. But most people don't know that there are actually many additional groupings that blood can come in.

To date 30 blood group systems have been recognised. These groupings are based on antigens that can be found on the surface of the blood cell. The antigens can be proteins, carbohydrates, glycoproteins, or glycolipids and over 600 have been identified. Many of the antigens are vary rare or found maily in specific ethnic groups.

These blood groups, are most important when it comes to blood transfusions. By blood typing the main groups, medical personnel can usually easily identify who can receive what blood.

Occasionally these additional blood groupings can cause issues, when the blood is rejected even though it passed the blood typing.

Recently, a lab in Canada has worked out of way of masking these antigens, by coating the blood cells with a layer of sugars, glycoproteins, and glycolipids.

In the lab and in test animals, they have successfully given transfusions of different types of bloods that would normally cause rejection issues without any reduction in the way the blood cells work.

It is going into human testing, and will hopefully be available in the next five years.