---
title: 5 Discoveries That Will Change The Future of Organ Transplants
description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news.
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article:published_time: 2013-06-06T19:30:56.000Z
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twitter:title: 5 Discoveries That Will Change The Future of Organ Transplants
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* [Health](/section/health/)
# 5 Discoveries That Will Change The Future of Organ Transplants
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by
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Jun 6, 2013 7:30 PM UTC
by
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Jun 6, 2013 7:30 PM UTC
## The Trouble With Transplants
There are 75,660 active patients waiting for a transplant in the U.S., according to the the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network. Some will never make it to the top of the list.
That was the worry of the parents of 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan, who is dying of end-stage cystic fibrosis and is waiting for a transplant at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Murnaghan made headlines this week when her parents filed a lawsuit to change the existing transplant policy that says kids under 12 must wait for pediatric lungs to become available. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson ruled that Murnaghan should be placed on the adult waiting list for a lung.
The story highlighted the frustration of families waiting for organ transplants and the ethical issues involved with giving priority to certain patients. Dr. Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University Langone Medical Center, told the Associated Press he worries the ruling sets a bad precedent for patients to run to the court if they don't like their spot on the waiting list.
Despite pleas from several Pennsylvania congressmen and heavy press, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen refused to get involved in the case since there were three other kids at the hospital in the same condition.
The grim reality is that due to the shortage of organ donors, many people are forced to wait months and even years for a chance at a transplant. Too often, they don't survive that long. Even when they do, it's not uncommon for their body to reject the new organ.
But there have also been several breakthroughs in transplants in recent years. In 2010, the world saw the first full-face transplant. Meanwhile, scientists are working to combat the problems that face people with organ failure worldwide. Here are some of the innovations changing the future of organ transplants and providing hope that one day, organ failure will not feel like a death sentence. asifferlin
## Creating Organs From Stem Cells
Darryl Warren and Lee Young-mi visit their 2-year-old daughter, Hannah Warren.
In April, a 2-year-old girl named Hannah Warren became the sixth patient in the world to receive a windpipe transplant made from her stem cells.
The nine-hour surgery was pioneered by Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, the director of the Advanced Center for Translational Regenerative Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. His procedure was approved by the FDA as an experimental operation for patients with very little hope of surviving. Macchiarini has performed all the previous transplants of bioengineered windpipes. So far, one of his patients, Christopher Lyles, has died. Last year, describing Lyles’ operation, TIME’s Alice Park wrote:
Macchiarini has been perfecting the process of using stem cells to seed bioengineered scaffolds for organs like the trachea since 2008; in his first such procedure, he used a donor trachea to replace that of a Spanish woman, stripping the organ of its cells and coating it with the woman’s own stem cells. But using a completely synthetic, bioengineered matrix such as the one transplanted in Lyles, he says, makes the transplant safer for the patient, potentially sparing him the complications that can arise if he can’t accept the new organ.
Exactly how the windpipe, made of stem cells, works in the body is not totally clear, but since stem cells are capable of becoming all different types of body cells, it's likely they react to the environment they are transplanted into and start developing the appropriate tissue.
The research is not only promising for developing much needed organs, but for understanding how to tamp down rejection to transplantable devices.
MORE: Young Girl Receives Lifesaving Windpipe Transplant Made From Her Stem Cells asifferlin
## Artificial and Implantable Organs
One solution for the shortage of transplantable organs is creating artificial ones that last.
Already, researchers are developing bioartificial organs that can keep patients with serious organ failure alive and functioning for years. For now, the goal is to keep patients alive until they can receive a real organ, but one day, patients may be able to live for long periods of time with artificial hearts or kidneys.
Currently, SynCardia Systems, Inc. provides patients with a full-functioning artificial heart. The manufactured heart replaces both failing ventricles and all four heart valves and eliminates the need for pacemakers and defibrillators. The longest a patient has been supported with the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart is nearly four years before receiving a successful transplant.
Kidney failure is being addressed by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, who will attempt to successfully demonstrate that their replacement organ works in humans. The project, lead by researcher, Shuvo Roy, will eliminate the need for dialysis. A silicon filter removes toxins from the blood. The artificial kidney is able to maintain the appropriate water balance in the body. Human testing for the kidney is scheduled for 2017.
MORE: The High-Tech Future of the Human Body asifferlin
## Ending Body Rejection of Transplants
The transplant team from the Massachusetts General Hospital Transplantation Biology Research Center is trying to combat organ rejection and has developed an unconventional procedure that avoids lifelong dependence on drugs.
In 2008, the researchers, led by Dr. David H. Sachs and Dr. Megan Sykes, transplanted four donors' bone marrow along with their kidneys. This appeared to mitigate the problem of organ rejection without the need for loads of immunosuppressive drugs that can plague patients with lifelong side effects.
Doctors prepare the patient's immune system before the surgery by using drugs that target the immune systems's T cells — which look for foreign invaders like bacteria or tissue from outside donors — then eliminate them. They then transplant both the donor's kidney and bone marrow. The bone marrow cells then rebuild the body's immune system as a chimera, which is a hybrid combination of the patient's cells and the donor's cells.
This allows the body to accept the donated organ. Although the procedure is still not widely available, the researchers are conducting the procedure again in 15 kidney patients.
In TIME's 2008 coverage of the procedure, Dr. Sachs told Alice Park: "It retrains the immune system, fooling it into thinking that the donor tissue is now part of the self. There is no question that during the initial phase, the patient has a lot more difficult time. But they trade that difficulty with what is beginning to look like lifelong suppression \[of rejection\]."
MORE: Organ Transplants Without the Drugs asifferlin
## A Machine That Keeps Organs Alive Outside The Body
![Technology is becoming a bigger player in perfecting organ donation. New technologies like the Toronto XVIVO Lung Perfusion System allow organs to remain outside the human body for extended periods so physicians can ensure donor transplants are up to snuff before transplants. In 2008, Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, a thoracic surgeon and director of the lung transplant program at Toronto General Hospital, and his colleagues from the University of Toronto successfully developed a machine that allows them to keep a lung viable outside the body, allowing more time to measure and assess the organ before transplanting it. The system also allows doctors to "enhance" the delicate organ so that it ends up in a healthier state than it was when it came to them. Organs, especially lungs, can be damaged when a patient dies. As
Organs, especially lungs, can be damaged when a patient dies. As the Toronto Star reports, only about 15% of donated lungs end up being used each year, but with Dr. Keshavjee's innovation, Toronto General Hospital is able to use 40% of the lungs donated.
"In a donation after cardiac death, only 2% of lungs are typically used," says Dr. Keshavjee. "I think this could easily be moved to 50%. We can resue many of the lungs we don't use today. Now we can see we are not only going to preserve an organ, but we are going to make it better. I think that this strategy is applicable to all organs, but they have specific needs. I think mistakes in the past have been assuming all organs need the same thing. So systems need to be developed to meet the needs of each organ."
Right now, the machine facilitates transplant of lungs that have been outside of the body for 16 hours. But with more research, Dr. Keshavjee says he thinks they could work on lungs for two to three days before transplanting.
Watch Dr. Keshavjee explain how the machine works:
\[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emP9vrsdPwo\] asifferlin
## Printing 3D Organs
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<br>Technology is becoming a bigger player in perfecting organ donation. New technologies like the Toronto XVIVO Lung Perfusion System allow organs to remain outside the human body for extended periods so physicians can ensure donor transplants are up to snuff before transplants.<br><br><br><br>In 2008, Dr. Shaf Keshavjee, a thoracic surgeon and director of the lung transplant program at Toronto General Hospital, and his colleagues from the University of Toronto successfully developed a machine that allows them to keep a lung viable outside the body, allowing more time to measure and assess the organ before transplanting it.<br><br><br><br>The system also allows doctors to ){kind=link}