Pig organs brought back to life show ‘death is reversible’

THE process of death can be reversed, scientists have shown by bringing a pig’s organs back to full health after it was killed.

Yale scientists have developed a way to reverse the biological process of dying, where organs break down and stop working after the heart stops.

The discovery could revolutionise transplantation by giving doctors more time to harvest organs, and could be used to treat severely injured patients.

In the experiment, a dead pig was hooked up to a machine called Organex one hour after an induced cardiac arrest. The machine pumped a fluid containing 13 different compounds around its body, staving off organ death and allowing the cells to flourish.

Dying organs treated with the technology recovered to the point of being comparable with those of a living pig.

Dr David Andrijevic, of Yale School of Medicine and co-author of the study, said: “All cells do not die immediately, there is a more protracted series of events. [Organex] is a process in which you can intervene, stop and restore some cellular function.

“Under the microscope, it was difficult to tell the difference between a healthy organ and one which had been treated with Organex technology after death.”

While the technology is effective at improving function, it does not rekindle the essence of life, the scientists said, as there is no evidence of electrical activity in the brain after death.

It builds on a 2019 study in which a smaller version of the technology, called Brainex, repaired neurons in pig brains, although no electrical activity was detected.

‘This demonstrates that our social convention of death as an absolute end is not scientifically valid’

Dr Sam Parnia, associate professor of critical care medicine at New York University, said: “This is a truly remarkable and incredibly significant study. It demonstrates that, after death, cells in mammal’s organs (including humans), such as the brain, do not die for many hours.

“This study demonstrates that our social convention regarding death, i.e. as an absolute black and white end, is not scientifically valid.

“By contrast, scientifically, death is a biological process that remains treatable and reversible for hours after it has occurred.”