I’m Beating in a Box, In a Plastic Box
A human heart, alive in a box.
Up until this point, live organs have been transported from donors to patients in coolers, buried in ice to keep them “fresh.” This only works for about six hours, which is why private jets, helicopters, and ambulances are used to speed these irreplaceable and lifesaving items around the country as quickly as possible.
Now, if I where a disembodied heart, I’d find an icy cooler a distinctly uncomfortable way to travel. A company called TransMedics agrees, which is why it’s constructed this self-contained Organ Care System, or OCS. You can stick a heart into this fancy device, hook it up to a supply of donated blood, and start it beating again, and it’ll happily sit there, warm and toasty and productive and supplied with all the oxygen and nutrients it could want. The housing is even clear plastic so that the heart can see out and enjoy the trip, which is probably a fairly unique experience for an otherwise internal organ.
There’s video at the link, where you can see a live, human heart beating in a box. It doesn’t take a great imagination to see the places this technology can lead.
Something about the line “The housing is even clear plastic so that the heart can see out and enjoy the trip, which is probably a fairly unique experience for an otherwise internal organ” is just laugh-out-loud funny to me. It’s a strange and wonderful world we live in.
I wonder how long before they have a version of this technology for eye transplants?
My husband’s heart arrived in a cooler. When he was transplanted, the heart had to be beating in the recipient within 4 hours of it being removed from the donor, which means the flight from Dallas to Houston, plus transport by ambulance from the airport really cut in to the time the surgeons had to reconnect everything. It also means, all those hearts from Hawaii can’t go to a donor outside the islands, since it’s too long a flight to get to the mainland.
This technology opens a whole new world. As Instapundit says, “Faster, please!”
If the organ were a brain, it would probably prefer to be in the plastic box over Barack Obama’s head where it would likely atrophy due to lack of use.
Wow, that looks like the setup I use to vacuum marinate my steaks.
Come to think of it, modulate the vacuum a little, run some feed lines through the chamber, and that’s probably how the whole thing works.
Great idea though!
Eddie Poe, upon hearing the news, rolled over in his grave and screamed.
We are not worthy.
Jim shoots and scores! But I want to try one…
Mr Lewis: Hey, is that the heart of rock and roll?
me: Yes Huey, it’s still beating.