Scientist Developed Oxygen Injection ― "No Need To Breathe"

Oxygen plays a critical role in respiration and helps organisms grow, reproduce, and convert food into energy. We humans, along with many other creatures, need oxygen that we breathe to stay alive. Oxygen is produced by plants and many types of microbes during photosynthesis.

But now, scientists have developed a new oxygen-filled microparticle that can be injected into the bloodstream, keeping you alive even if you can't take air into your lungs. 

Patients who are unable to breathe due to acute lung failure or obstructed airways need another way to get oxygen to their blood—and quickly—to avoid cardiac arrest and brain injury. The Boston Children's Hospital research team designed tiny, gas-filled microparticles that can be injected directly into the bloodstream to quickly oxygenate the blood. 

In the studies, scientists used a device called a sonicator, which uses high-intensity sound waves to mix oxygen and lipids. The process traps oxygen gas inside particles with an average of 2 to 4 micrometers in size. Microparticles are actually tiny capsules made of a single layer of lipids (fatty molecules) surrounding a small bubble of oxygen gas.

When the capsule-filled liquid is injected into the bloodstream, the capsules will crash into your red blood cells, transferring the oxygen gas from the capsule to the cell in just 4 seconds. Approximately 70% of the oxygen injected successfully flows into the blood this way.

In a 2012 study, research scientists injected microparticles filled with oxygen into rabbits' bloodstream. This injection method was so successful that the scientists managed to keep rabbits with blocked windpipes alive for 15 minutes.

Scientists hope that oxygen microparticles can lead to a short-term rescue technique for patients with abnormally low levels of oxygen.