麻豆社

In what researchers say is a global first, blood grown in a laboratory has been put into people for the first time - albeit at this stage in just tiny amounts, a couple of spoonfuls.

The aim, ultimately, is to boost the supply of vital but immensely rare blood groups, which are very difficult to get hold of.

Dr Rebecca Cardigan from Cambridge University is involved in the study and she told Newshour's Tim Franks about it.

(Photo shows a laboratory-grown red blood cell, which carriers oxygen and carbon dioxide around the body. Credit: NHSBT)