Transplanting Frozen Organs

rleyton writes: "Nature and the The BBC are reporting that scientists have successfully transplanted frozen organs. This could be huge for fertility treatment, and for meeting demand for organ transplants - There aren't enough donors to meet demand."

Thought..

[AnalogBoy]

Maybe if they offered like a small tax break or something, people would be more likely to donate organs. I mean, otherwise, you're not getting anything, except a good feeling (oh. thats right. you're -dead-.) I'll donate any organs they want of mine - i'm not going to need them. Who wants a liver?

It's early....

[Not2Bryt64]

Which "organ" would they transplant for "fertility treatment"? Just asking for my..ummm.. friend. Yeah, this guy I know. Not me.

Frozen organs?

[MaufTarkie]

I hope they thaw before they insert. OTOH, it is possible to literally have a cold heart now...

Ah, the wonders of the 21st century. What will they think of next... adult stem cells?

Transplanting frozen tissue

[Adrian Voinea]

Here's another interesting article that appeared in the UT Discovery Magazine regarding transplanting frozen organs:

http://www.utexas.edu/admin/opa/discovery/disc1998 v15n1/disc-diller.html [utexas.edu]

Quote: "A bright future surrounds bioengineering and the contributions and impact the discipline will have on life and the medical sciences."

While this is a large step forward......

[jsimon12]

There are a lot of other issues to work out. Ovaries and such aren't something that is necessary and honestly aren't the most complex organs (groupings of cells/eggs/support cells, but not really any major vascular nerve systems etc etc). That and we already know that eggs can be frozen. If this test had been done with a kidney or possibly the actually womb it might be more impressive. But my guess is that the kidneys and other higher organs are far too complex to be frozen and transplanted.

Though I am only an Engineer with a Biology Degree and by no means an expert, any experts/more qualified person want to comment?

Re:While this is a large step forward......

[wickedstokedgurl]

I don't have the education in this field that you do, but I wouldn't be as hasty to say that it is impossible. People have been hoping to be able to freeze a living person and revive them in the distant future, when medical technoligy is better. People also want to make organ transplant more available. Now it has been my experience that the old saying "where there's a will there's a way" very much applies to us humans. I truely expect that if people are doing research in this field, which they obviously are, that in the relatively near future we will see very big and practical break throughs.

Walt Disney was right!

[isotope23]

It begins to look more and more like Cryonics will
be a viable option. (Of course there are still problems to work out)
but the baby steps are being done, cells, then organs then whole bodies.....

I wonder what this will do to copyright law?
If I am frozen, and never declared dead, will
my IP still be protected??? HA!

Re:Walt Disney was right!

[spiro_killglance]

Actually, you don't even need organ freezing
to be perfect or even good for Cryonics to work.
The frozen brains need not be viable as a transplant organ, they merely needs to be enough
structure left in the brain for it still to be
possible to calculate exactly what the brain was
like when it was alive. If that is happens and
humans continue to make technological progress, then eventially frozen brain can be reconstructed in a new body or uploaded into a computer and emulated there.

Major implications

[Tuxinatorium]

If organs can be successfully frozen, thawed, and transplanted, perhaps whole people can be cryogenically frozen and revived.

My feelings in a song

[Muad'Dave]

This song au [luini.com] mp3 [iuma.com] real [iuma.com] (by Scott Brookman [iuma.com]) sums up my feelings exactly.