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Our vision of getting an organ ‘fit’

Maintaining blood circulation and organ function extra-corporeally through machine perfusion offers the unique option to treat a diseased organ. We want to regenerate and improve both diseased patients’ organs as well as donor organs with the help of this revolutionary technology. Basically, organs could be treated on the machine for several hours or even days.
Depending on the extent and type of organ damage and disease, the following options are considerations for treating an organ:

• Improvement of metabolic capacity and hence organ function
  Metabolism-stimulating and nutrient-rich substances may be supplemented to the perfusion solution during mechanical circulation.
  
  
• Treatment of damaged vessels within the organ
  Regenerating substances are supplemented. They primarily adhere to the inner lining of damaged vessels and repair them.
  
  
• Treatment of genetic diseases with gene therapy
  The revolutionary technique of ‘molecular gene scissors’ - CrisPr/Cas 9 – may enable the therapy of organ-specific genetic diseases during machine perfusion.
  
  
• Cell replacement using stem cell therapy
  The addition of stem cells to the circulation during machine perfusion enables recovery of the diseased organ.
  
  
• Tumor therapy
  The ability to perform blood perfusion and prolonged preservation of organs outside the human body reveals completely novel perspectives and opportunities. It revolutionizes both – the organ-specific tumor treatment as well as the organ-specific anti-aging processes. Conceptually, if an organ has been affected by a tumor, it could be surgically removed, then treated extracorporeally whilst being machine-perfused, and subsequently reimplanted into the patient. This helps to test and apply entirely novel therapies while avoiding the side effects often caused by aggressive cancer therapies.
  
  
• Treatment on organ-specific aging
  May revolutionize tumor therapy and organ-specific aging.

^{schneeberger s. nature. 2018;557:40}

Organ-specific drug testing

Machine perfusion also offers an innovative option to be used in the field of drug testing.

Testing of newly developed pharmacologic therapies on efficacy and side effects could initially involve mammalian organs before entering clinical trials. This holds the potential to establish an entirely new drug-testing pathway for the pharmaceutical industry.