Researchers develop new technique to model transplantation of the human liver

A team of scientists, physicians, and engineers from the Center for Engineering in Medicine (CEM) and the Transplant Center of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA reported the development of a new technology that enables researchers to better study liver transplantation in a pre-clinical setting. The model specifically examines the reperfusion stage of transplantation, when the liver is surgically implanted into the recipient patient. This reperfusion stage of liver transplantation is particularly important because it causes significant injury to the organ, but it is also the first time the organ begins to function again inside the recipient’s body after a period of organ preservation. This model could be of significant value to those that aim to study the effects that organ preservation has on the function of the liver after transplantation, which was previously more difficult to study outside of the clinical setting. The report appears in the December 2017 issue of the journal Technology.