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The Race Against Time: Supercooling Extends Liver Viability

The Race Against Time: Supercooling Extends Liver Viability

FromScience Rehashed


The Race Against Time: Supercooling Extends Liver Viability

FromScience Rehashed

ratings:
Length:
26 minutes
Released:
Feb 12, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

Is it possible to transplant an organ from a donor on the East Coast to a patient on the West Coast without losing its viability? “Impossible with current technologies,” says Dr. Korkut Uygun from the Center for Engineering in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. In the United States alone, one-fifth of patients who need a transplant will not receive one in time. Scientists in the field are combating this problem by developing methods to increase preservation time while reducing organ damage. In this episode, we discuss how Dr. Korkut Uygun and Dr. Reinier J. de Vries were able to extend human liver preservation from the current average of 12 hours to 27 hours. The scientist will help us elucidate two key techniques for organ preservation, namely supercooling and room temperature machine perfusion, and dive deeply into the challenges they faced in this endeavor and the impact of this technology for future patients in need of transplantation.
Released:
Feb 12, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode

Titles in the series (45)

Hosted by Mehdi Jorfi and Layla Siraj, Science Rehashed aims to offer a window into recent life science breakthroughs and their impacts to anyone in the world with an internet connection.