Pioneering the Future of Medicine:

Dr. Andre Danesh's Vision for the Artificial Blood Institute

Dr. Andre Danesh, a chemist, businessman, philanthropist, and most importantly a researcher, whose focus has been on the copy of hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers (HBOCs), is announcing the Artificial Blood Institute with the goal creating a safe and effective artificial blood composition for transfusion into humans. Danesh is 90 years old and wants to see his research become the next frontier in science as it relates to the development of blood substitutes. 

Dr. Danesh has spent years working on the development of artificial oxygen carriers, often known as blood substitutes. At 90 years old, Danesh said, “…I have had this dream of making artificial hemoglobin my whole life and I am excited to work with researchers worldwide to bring this concept to fruition”. 

Currently, there are no FDA-approved blood substitutes for use in surgery, childbirth, blood vessel rupture or other extreme blood loss situations. While some have been partially approved, they can only be used in case of emergency due to the risk of side effects. 

Danesh now wants to share his research with the world by creating the Andre Danesh Artificial Blood Institute, a platform on which Danesh will make his new US patent application available worldwide for the good of mankind.

“It is at this time that I see the work that I’ve spent years developing be put out to the world to make an even stronger impact and that our discoveries will make a difference, helping to save many lives in the future.” 

Organometallic compounds

As a chemist, Dr. Danesh’s passion started when working on organo-metallic compounds, mostly amino acids with iron and other metals, while at his lab at UMass Boston in 1967. In his laboratory, the Danesh lab focused on using iron chelates for iron-deficient calciferous soil – soil that will not allow iron to be absorbed by fruit trees. This was a great win because he sold his patent for $10,000 to W.R. Grace, which made his product and then returned to working on blood substitutes for iron deficiency. 

A year later, Danesh worked with the U.S. Army and submitted a proposal to copy hemoglobin with amino acids (see here).  Working alongside some of the brightest scientists from some of the top universities, Danesh, MIT, and Northwestern University were invited to present the research in Washington, DC. Unfortunately, Danesh closed his laboratory and decided the timing wasn’t right. This was when he decided to move into chemical sales and put this research on the back burner. 

During these years, Danesh’s focus shifted towards his growing family and he became a successful capitalist who didn’t return to the lab, even though he did receive funding from the Department of the Army. “I was so angry and unhappy. I had missed the opportunity.” Little did Andre know what his future would hold and the impact he would have on others as a businessman, family man, and philanthropist. 

A new opportunity

Danesh grew up in a small Orthodox Jewish community in Borudjerd, Iran. As a chemistry student at the University of Tehran, Danesh transferred to university in France after one year, and then to Indiana State University, where he earned his bachelor's degrees in chemistry and mathematics. After college, he returned to France to earn his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Montpellier in 1962. This was quite fast, and often unusual for someone to finish graduate studies in chemistry in two years, but while earning his Ph.D., Danesh discovered how to purify chromium chelate by adding ammonium to it to get ammonium salt. “…after four or five months working…I was able to discover a number of new products and I went to my professor and he looked at it and said, “This is magnificent, it’s wonderful, you’ve solved the problem.” “As a result, I was able to finish my Ph.D. in two years.”

After earning his Ph.D., Danesh went to do his postdoc at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he met his wife Marilyn (CAS ’67) before returning to France as a research associate at the Sorbonne. Then Andre’s family grew and his eldest, Erik, was born. As a family, they decided to move to Boston, where Danesh took a professorship in chemistry at the University of Massachusetts. After one year, he left UMASS and opened his laboratory, Massachusetts Research Laboratories, Inc., focusing on iron chelates. He then went on to become a successful stock and real estate investor, and most recently, a philanthropist. Due to growing up as a Jew in a Muslim neighborhood, Danesh knows what it is to be underrepresented. Today, Danesh has funded many organizations, big and small, but often with a sympathetic approach because when he arrived in America, he only had 67 dollars and a Persian carpet. Still,  it was his trials and tribulations that led to his success today. “I am proud of my adopted country, which has given me freedom of religion and allowed me to be successful”, said Danesh.

Now in retirement, Danesh has been able to return to his true passion for research. 

A great man with an even better idea

The Artificial Blood Institute’s goal is the creation of a safe and effective artificial blood composition for transfusion into humans that is low in cost to produce and stable over extended periods of time. The Institute has developed a concept for the creation for such an artificial blood product and has recently filed several patent applications in the United States for this composition. Now, the institute is publicly disclosing its artificial blood concept on this website and is seeking those involved in research, especially those involved in research on artificial blood and/or iron complexes of amino acids, to cooperate with the Institute in bringing such an artificial blood composition to commercialization, in an effort to stop blood shortages worldwide.  Research shows that the global supply of blood for use in life-saving transfusions is insufficient to match the international demand.

Dr. Andre Danesh has identified over 100 different amino acids that the Artificial Blood Institute will be working on.  After being approached by many local institutions, Danesh knew it was going to take too long to see the fruit of his labor come to fruition. Now, Dr. Danesh is calling on other scientists worldwide, to prepare and make iron chelates in his patent, see here, to find which one of these chelates is an oxygen carrier. 

AI could be used to select the best of Dr. Danesh’s amino acids or a combination of the amino acids in this invention as an oxygen career. In addition, it may be  advisable to add human, or animal enzymes, in combination with iron chelates before or after oxygenations. 

We invite those who are interested to be in touch with us at www.daneshbloodinstitute.org