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The waiting list for organ transplants is growing at an alarming rate while the number of potential organ donors has failed to keep pace. Encouragingly, scientists are working several high-tech solutions in the field of regenerative medicine. We spoke to the experts to learn how organ shortages will soon become a thing of the past.
Organ shortages are a growing health concern. Each year in the United States there are approximately 28,000 transplants, with 120,000 people stuck on waiting lists. Tragically, most people on the wait list die before they ever get an organ. Furthermore, it has been estimated that 35% of all U.S. deaths — about 900,000 — could be prevented, or at least significantly delayed, by organ transplantation. Internationally, the World Health Organization says organ transplants are currently achieving less than 10% of the global demand.
Looking at kidneys alone, about 25,000 people die each year waiting for a donation. And as New Organ founder Dave Gobel told the D.I, there are approximately two million estimated individuals in Europe, North America, and in the British Commonwealth who need replacement organs but don't show up anywhere on waiting lists because they're "deemed by the medical establishment to be 'not a transplant candidate' due to reasons such as having or having had cancer, being too old, and other triage-based disqualifiers."
At the same time, 95% of Americans support organ donation, but only 40% are registered organ donors.
There's also the issue of how organs are procured today.
"For someone needing a heart/lung transplant, someone must die for them," says Gobel "Imagine being in a situation where you must hope someone dies so you can live."
Compounding the problem is that even for the fortunate few who do receive an organ donation (aside from those who receive a kidney), there are severe constraints on the quality of life after an operation. Many face a lifetime filled with the need to take auto-immune suppression drugs to stave off organ rejection, while the same drugs also lower their overall immune competence.
"If all of that works out, they will still be facing the fact that transplant organs will often need to be replaced within 10 years of implant," says Gobel. "A ticking time bomb of life. Better than death for sure, but wow, what a life."
New Organ, a collective initiative hosted by Methuselah Foundation (a biomedical charity) and managed by the Institute of Competition Sciences, is currently raising awareness and facilitating research initiatives to help alleviate the shortages, including the New Organ Liver Prize — a $1,000,000 award to the first team "that creates a regenerative or bioengineered solution that keeps a large animal alive for 90 days without native liver function." The organization is currently working on a number of other related initiatives, including a shared roadmap, a prize portfolio to stimulate key breakthroughs, and a growing network of partners.
Indeed, as the biotechnology revolution takes shape, a number of solutions are emerging, including the ability to regenerate whole organs using stem cells, bioprinting tissue, and developing artificial and assistive organs. What's more, we'll soon be able to reliably preserve these bioengineered organs for when they're needed, such as in an emergency. (This prospect is being catalyzed by the Organ Preservation Alliance, a founding partner of New Organ.) Taken together, these advances will do much to meet the growing demand for replacement organs.
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