Researchers at the University of Cambridge say they have produced human blood cells in the laboratory by using self-organizing, embryo-like structures. Credit: Berkshire Community College Bioscience Image Library – Public Domain via Flickr.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge say they have produced human blood cells in the laboratory by using self-organizing, embryo-like structures that mimic key steps of very early human development.
The team created three-dimensional models they call “hematoids” from human stem cells. The structures form the three germ layers within days, begin producing beating heart cells by about day eight, and show visible red patches of blood by about day 13, the authors report in the journal Cell Reports. The blood-forming cells generated in the dishes include hematopoietic stem cells, immature cells that can develop into red blood cells and multiple types of immune cells.
“It was an exciting moment when the blood red color appeared in the dish; it was visible even to the naked eye,” said Dr. Jitesh Neupane, a researcher at Cambridge’s Gurdon Institute and a joint first author of the study.
The model scientists used to reproduce the human blood cells in a lab mimics fetal blood development
Unlike other lab methods that require cocktails of added proteins to coax blood stem cells to form, the hematoid system reproduces a natural developmental environment in which the cells’ own intrinsic signals drive the emergence of blood and heart cells within the same model, the researchers said. That, the team argues, could make the structures a powerful tool for studying how blood forms during embryogenesis and for modeling blood disorders such as leukemia.
“This model mimics human fetal blood development in the lab,” Neupane said, adding that it opens possibilities to screen drugs, study early blood and immune development, and model blood cancers. Professor Azim Surani, senior author of the paper, called the work “a significant step towards future regenerative therapies, which use a patient’s own cells to repair and regenerate damaged tissues.”
Des chercheurs de l’Université de Cambridge (🇬🇧) ont découvert une nouvelle méthode de production de cellules sanguines humaines en laboratoire : « Notre nouveau modèle reproduit le développement sanguin fœtal humain en labo. »https://t.co/w2SymXYNQo pic.twitter.com/kxxTUhtBi9
— Le Génie Humain (@legeniehumain) October 14, 2025
Dr. Geraldine Jowett, co-first author, said the hematoids capture a second wave of blood development that can give rise to specialized adaptive immune cells, including T cells, pointing to potential research applications in immunology and cancer biology.
Limitations of this advancement include a lack of tissues to develop into full embryos
The researchers emphasize important limitations. Hematoids differ from intact human embryos in key ways and cannot develop into full embryos because they lack several tissues, as well as the yolk sac and placenta needed for further development, the paper notes. The blood cells produced correspond roughly to a four- to five-week stage of human embryonic development, a period that cannot be directly observed in implanted embryos.
The work was carried out under institutional ethics approvals; the authors say all research modeling embryo development received necessary oversight. The team has patented the technology through Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s commercialization arm, and said the research was funded primarily by the Wellcome Trust.
If further developed and validated, the approach could eventually support personalized medicine by creating blood cells derived from a patient’s own cells, the researchers said. For now, they frame the results as a laboratory advance that sheds light on human developmental biology and offers new avenues for studying blood diseases.
