Beating new life into a heart transplant
Medical Express
University of Sunderland Senior Lecturer in Molecular Biology Dr Noel Carter and PhD Student and trainee surgeon Omar Mownah.
Human hearts which are not used each year because they are deemed unsuitable for an organ transplant could get a second chance to save a life, with the help of new research taking place in the North East.
Organ shortage is one of the most pressing issues concerning the field of transplantation,with hundreds of Britons a year dying while on the transplant waiting list, and coronary heart disease being one of the biggest killers in the UK.
From potential donors, some hearts are not retrieved due to their unsuitability for organ transplantation. Now new research at the University of Sunderland to restart hearts and develop tests to prove they are still viable, could potentially use more of the declined donor hearts, potentially helping to reduce transplant waiting lists.
As a result of successful pre-clinical tests in the lab to get dead pigs' hearts beating once again, clinical trials are to begin on human hearts that would not otherwise have been used after ethical approval was granted by National Research Ethics service in Newcastle. The research work has also been done in collaboration with Newcastle University.
Human hearts which are not used each year because they are deemed unsuitable for an organ transplant could get a second chance to save a life, with the help of new research taking place in the North East.
Organ shortage is one of the most pressing issues concerning the field of transplantation,with hundreds of Britons a year dying while on the transplant waiting list, and coronary heart disease being one of the biggest killers in the UK.
From potential donors, some hearts are not retrieved due to their unsuitability for organ transplantation. Now new research at the University of Sunderland to restart hearts and develop tests to prove they are still viable, could potentially use more of the declined donor hearts, potentially helping to reduce transplant waiting lists.
As a result of successful pre-clinical tests in the lab to get dead pigs' hearts beating once again, clinical trials are to begin on human hearts that would not otherwise have been used after ethical approval was granted by National Research Ethics service in Newcastle. The research work has also been done in collaboration with Newcastle University.
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