Discussion

The red blood cell (RBC) attractive biophysical properties and a well-characterised life cycle that make it an ideal potential drug-delivery vehicle or circulating bioreactor for therapeutic use. Research to date has mainly focused on loading mature erythrocytes with drugs, encapsulating isolated erythrocyte membranes or functionalisation of the RBC surface, all of which can be detrimental to the biophysical properties of the erythrocyte. In contrast, we have started to engineer RBCs with desirable properties by manipulating erythroid protein expression during red blood cell development using ex vivo erythroid culture system that produces reticulocytes from stem cells isolated from peripheral blood.