A New Method of Organ Preservation

Recently I came across an article on the BBC explaining a new technique on preserving organs shortly before transplantation. To keep the organs 'fresh', they will need to be 'supercooled' according to United States researchers. As with most scientific trials, this technique was first experimented on the organs of animals (specifically rat livers) and the results published in Nature Medicine. According to this the organs can be preserved for up to 3 days using this technique! Using current methods organs can only  remain viable for around 24 hours.

I think that in the long-term this technique can be cost effective for the NHS and seems like a very efficient method of preserving organs despite the initial start-up costs of implementing this resource into hospitals.

However we haven't yet tested this technique on human organs which is an important factor to consider. It's also interesting to know how this process works:

The main principle to note is that as soon as an organ is removed from the body, individual cells begin to die as they are stripped of their normal environment. However cooling aims to slow this process as the metabolic rate of the cells themselves is slowed.

But the main advantage here is that ultimately if this process works on human organs, donor matching will result more successfully. Especially as in current times the demand for organs without rejection is very high, this technique could be a major step in my opinion.

The important question now is can this technique be used on a 1.5kg human liver compared to a 10g rat liver? With more cells and a larger mass, I imagine preserving a larger organ will provide more difficulty.

Credit to Dr Korkut Uygun and his team of researchers at Harvard Medical School.

Click here to read more on the subject.