By Jaryn Vecchio

How pigs are helping researchers find ways to keep organs alive after death

Aug 4, 2022 | 12:36 PM

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Yale researchers may have found a way to keep organs alive longer after death.

Using new technology, they were able to restore blood circulation and other cellular functions in pigs a full hour after their deaths.

They believe this may help extend the health of human organs during surgery and expand the availability of donor organs.

“All cells do not die immediately, there is a more protracted series of events,” said David Andrijevic, an associate research scientist in neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine and co-lead of the study. “It is a process in which you can intervene, stop, and restore some cellular function.”

This work builds upon an earlier Yale-led project that restored circulation and certain cellular functions in the brain of a dead pig. The technology used in this study has since been dubbed BrainEx. Researchers decided to modify a version of BrainEx called OrganEx.

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Cardiac arrest was induced in anesthetized pigs who were treated with OrganEx which ultimately took over the work done by their heart and lungs and given an experimental fluid containing compounds that can promote cellular health and suppress inflammation.

Six hours later, the researchers found that certain key cellular functions were active in many areas of the pigs’ bodies including the heart, liver, and kidneys.

“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,” said Zvonimir Vrselja, one of the study’s researchers.

Additional studies are still being planned to determine whether the results are accurate and a rigorous ethical review from other scientists and bioethicists is still required.

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Jaryn.Vecchio@pattisonmedia.com

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