- The disparity between the number
of people waiting for an organ
and the number of organs available is significant.
About 20 people every day are dying on the wait list.
- Last year we had the most organ donors
from deceased donation that we've ever had.
Compared to 20 years ago deceased organs now come
from donors who are older.
Who have more comorbidities or other diseases.
- One of the things that routinely comes up
is how devastating it is to throw an organ away
that potentially could've been transplantable
but because you didn't have enough information,
you didn't have enough time,
you just didn't feel like you could do it safely.
- If any organs could be rehabilitated
and made acceptable for use for transplant
we could rescue those patients.
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- What we're doing in our lab
is taking livers and kidneys and putting them
onto a machine to study those organs
to find out where the different issues are
that might be impairing their function over time.
- In particular we're really focused
on taking these organs that are being discarded
because we're not sure that they'll be a good outcome
or a statistic suggests that
that may be a more dangerous organ
and developing new therapeutic and diagnostic innovations
that would allow us to take that organ and repair it.
- To have an opportunity to actually study
the exact organs that we're hoping to rescue
and to study therapies on those organs is so important.
- What it allows us to do is sort
of look inside the organ in real time
and in a way kind of put the organ
on a treadmill and see does it have fitness?
Can it work?
We can also do things like label our drugs
with a nuclear tracer and see does it get everywhere
where we need it to go?
And if it doesn't well
what about after we deliver this therapeutic?
Now has it gotten to where we need it to be?
- Using this kind of translational research
is really transformational because
it allows us to look independently at organs.
Human organs that we've never been able to do before.
- Even if some of these organs are declined
or discarded for transplantation,
we have the ability to utilize some
of these organs to perform research that may end up being
a gift that could help so many more people in the future.
- I'm incredibly passionate about how we honor
the gift that a donor family chooses to make.
And if it can't go to a single recipient,
it's our responsibility to figure out
how to have that still have a major impact
on the lives of potential recipients.
- The stakes are very high for our patients.
They are living on the edge of life and death every day.
And so knowing that the research you're doing
has this ability to save lives.
Not 50 years from now but tomorrow.
It's so rewarding and I can't think
of anything else I'd rather do.