Revolution in revival of donor organs could save millions of lives

A GROUNDBREAKING new method of safely reviving frozen organs promises to save millions of lives by ending the donor shortage crisis, scientists have said.

Researchers have discovered how to rewarm heart valves and blood vessels that had been preserved for long peri- ods at very low temperatures. The technique could enable the safe longterm storage of donated organs such as hearts and lungs, more than 60 per cent of which currently have to be discarded because they cannot be kept for more than a few hours.

It means hospitals should be able to create banks of donated organs, to which patients can travel at their con- venience, rather than trying to find suitable recipients when a donor dies.

According to recent estimates, if even half of organs that are currently thrown away were successfully transplanted, transplant waiting lists could be eliminated in less than two years.

Preservation methods that cool biological samples to an ice-free glassy state – between -256F and -320F (-160 and -196C) – have been around for decades. The major hurdle, however, has come at the rewarming stage, when tissues often suffer major damage, especially at larger scales.

In the new study, researchers at the University of Minnesota developed a warming method using silica-coated iron oxide nanoparticles dispersed throughout a solution that included the tissue. The nanoparticles acted as tiny heaters around the tissue when activated using non-invasive electromagnetic waves. This rapidly and uniformly warmed cells 10 to 100 times faster than previous methods.

After testing for viability, the results, published in the journal Science Trans

lational Medicine, showed that none of the tissue displayed signs of harm.