I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: Transplant Discussion => Topic started by: MooseMom on February 08, 2016, 10:46:09 AM
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An article in the most recent edition of The Economist outlines research currently being done in how to safely freeze transplantable organs, thus increasing the number of organs available. The North American wood frog will freeze solid several times in any given winter, and this is possible because the water in its body is replaced by glucose stored in the liver, which stops ice forming in their tissues. When temps rise, the frogs thaw and go about their frog business.
Water expands when it freezes, so it follows that when the water in our bodies freeze, it expands and causes damage. So the research is focused on how to make us like wood frogs. Apparently when they freeze, their insides turn to glass, not ice. Glasses are technically liquids, and when a glass cools, it doesn't form the crystals that cause damage.
Anyway, the article is fairly long and detailed; I wish I could provide a link, but the article is available only to subscribers. But I can say that some of the researchers involved in following different theories and experiments are Mehmet Tonor of Harvard Medical School, John Bischof of the University of Minnesota (his research focuses on safely warming back up these tissues), and other scientists whose work is followed by The Organ Preservation Alliance (OPA), which was formed in 2014. They have lobbied the US Defense Department to seed 7 teams with money to research cryopreservation. The NIH is getting involved along with venture capitalists and the XPRISE Foundation.
Wouldn't it be great if in the not too distant future, organs could be safely frozen, stored and categorized, and then safely thawed when a recipient needs one?
Please, if you can go out and buy the 6th Feb edition of The Economist, please do so just so you can read the article. It filled me with hope.
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There was an article recently about how we are starting to learn dead frozen people can be revived. Might be the same with organs.
This year
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/frozen-man-revived-brink-death-found-snow-pulse/story?id=36380318
1981
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/03/us/dakota-teen-ager-recovers-after-being-frozen-stiff.html
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Maybe Zombies could just sign up as an organ donors........
:waiting;