Organ transplants: 'Supercooling' keeps organs fresh

[Chippiewill]

A new technique can preserve organs for days before transplanting them, US researchers claim.

"Supercooling" combines chilling the organ and pumping nutrients and oxygen through its blood vessels.

Tests on animals, reported in the journal Nature Medicine, showed supercooled livers remained viable for three days, compared with less than 24 hours using current technology.

If it works on human organs, it has the potential to transform organ donation.

As soon as an organ is removed from the body, the individual cells it is made from begin to die.

Cooling helps slow the process as it reduces the metabolic rate of the cells.

Meanwhile, surgeons in the UK carried out the first "warm liver" transplant in March 2013 which used an organ kept at body temperature in a machine.

The technique being reported first hooks the organ up to a machine which perfuses the organ with nutrients.

It is then cooled to minus 6C.

In experiments on rat livers, the organs could be preserved for three days.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28061265


This is a really interesting development, hopefully it'll allow for those who really need the organs to get them.

[GommeInc]

This is quite interesting. This may bridge the gap until organs can simply be grown, which might take a while to truly perfect. Definitely better than the current 24 hour system of organ transplants.

[Chippiewill]

This may bridge the gap until organs can simply be grown, which might take a while to truly perfect.

I seem to recall an article recently about 3D printing organs.

Being able to grow organs on their own actually has a lot of other applications, like growing meat that isn't so bad for the environment.

[FlyingJesus]

THEY USE 3D PRINTERS TO MAKE ORGANS ON GREY'S ANATOMY but wow supercooling is literally magic anyway so using it for something practical is excellent, just hope the rate of decay is slowed enough for it to be a viable option without huge risks

[Becca]

this is brilliant i hope it works
it would be A LOT easier