Usually the organs that want to be donated need to be taken from people who died immediately before they get damaged. This small window is one of the reasons why it is difficult to get organs that can save the lives of people who need them. Scientists from the University of Minnesota announced the success of organ transplants that were frozen in advance, opening up the possibility that it will become the norm in the future.
Five rat kidneys were frozen for 100 days before being transplanted into five laboratory rats. After the surgery was performed, the lab rats functioned normally with the kidneys returning to normal after 30 days. To ensure that the frozen kidney does not suffer the spread of damage, nanoparticles of iron oxide are included in the liquid used to freeze the organ.
Then the organ is reheated before being transferred into the body of the recipient rat using an electromagnetic induction system. Because the iron oxide nano particles are spread evenly throughout the organ, even reheating of the organ can be done without damaging the cells.
The previous issue was that ice crystals formed in frozen organs causing damage at the cellular level. Organs can no longer be transplanted because of it.
At this time, the test was only done on laboratory mice, with the next plan being to freeze pig kidneys because they are animals that are often used as analogues to human organs.
In addition to the freezing process, restoring blood circulation in pig lungs was also done two years ago at Columbia University. It is another way to ensure that the donated organs will not be damaged during transplantation. Another more drastic step has been taken by using pig organs in the human body, but the recipient died of a viral infection last year.