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I’m writing a novella for a school competition. One of my other main characters is a vampire. I’ve found very good scientific explanations behind vampires and their mannerisms etc.
But instead of killing humans (in my world vampires would only be able to live off human not animal) could scientists make synthetic blood and add in key vitamins/minerals as well as lessen the fat quantity? I’m thinking maybe factories that mass produce it but is it possible? Thank you!
There are fictional vampires who survive on tomato sauce to avoid killing man.
Since vampires are fictional creatures and there is no universal standard on them, you can tweak the fiction to the way you like it, explaining that scientists were able to create a serum as nutrient as freshly spilled blood, without its shortcoming (a screaming virgin who needs to be chased is not always the best way to have supper)
If your question is, "Can we create synthetic blood?" and not so much "Could vampires survive on it?" (the latter having no definite answer as many have pointed out already), then yes absolutely.
They're usually called Blood Substitutes and there are several types being researched and improved upon. Some variants are even beginning clinical trials.
Now just so that nobody gets confused I'd like to make it clear that scientists are designing these blood surrogates in order to potentially be used in the place of blood transfusions in human patients. Not as a dietary substitute for vampires.
But regardless, supposing that there is some physical/chemical (as opposed to metaphysical "life-energy" or the like which doesn't seem to be something one could reproduce in a lab) property of human blood that vampires need then, indeed, some type of artificial blood could be formulated to meet their nutritional requirements.
The answers depends a lot on "what kind of vampire". We could make, for example, one distinction here:
a) The, let's call it, "pseudo-realistic vampire", with some (pseudo-)biological reasoning for the whole vampire mess (a virus, whatever). Such a vampire would have a (pseudo-)biological reason for needing blood - and a synthetic blood could be good enough for them. Of course, such a vampire could need blood for purely psychological reasons, in which case it depends on those reasons if synthetic blood is good enough.
b) The "mystical" vampire that draws from the "life essence" of a person with blood only being the carrier or even just a symbol for that. Such a vampire would probably not gain much from synthetic blood, since it has no connection to an actual living being.
But of course, there are many more possible variants of vampire and depending on your choice of vampire "style" the answer varies. Some might live from synthetic blood and even prefer it (how many people would want to suck milk from a living cow if the can have it delivered to their doorstep in a clean bottle?), for others synthetic blood is just something that looks like blood but doesn't actually nourish them.
There are two problems answering your question :
What is it in blood that vampires require from it to live ? To make a synthetic replacement you need to know this (and we cannot know it as vampires are mythical).
With sufficient technology you can, in principle, perfectly duplicate anything, which will always provide a trivial "yes" to this type of question.
However the correct solution may simply be to use blood donations to feed vampires. Doubtless there are plenty of people who would willingly engage in a trade of supplying blood for money. And given the nature of humans there would be plenty who would make this part of the dreadful "trade" of illegal human trafficking.
If you want to consider the idea of an "industrial" basis of blood production using blood donations, this page on how often you can donate blood would be useful to work from.
