Researchers at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute have developed a way of solving a significant issue surrounding donor organs \u2014 matching blood types.<\/p>\n
The researchers successfully converted lungs from a type A donor into type O by removing the antigens associated with the donor blood type and making it compatible with recipients of any blood type.<\/p>\n
While type A, B, and AB blood and tissue contain antigens that may trigger an immune response in people with a different blood type,\u00a0 type O lacks antigens. For this reason, people with type O blood are considered universal donors.<\/p>\n
According to Ars Technica<\/a><\/strong>, lead author of the research and head of the Cypel Lab at the University of Toronto, Marcelo Cypel, had previously developed the ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) process.<\/p>\n EVLP is essentially a process by which donated lungs are protected in a plastic-domed environment while doctors feed it nutrients and oxygen.<\/p>\n According to the paper published by Cypel and his colleagues<\/a><\/strong>, the research was designed to study the safety and preclinical efficacy of using enzymes to remove A antigen (A-Ag) from human donor lungs using ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP).<\/p>\n The enzymes in question are FpGalNAc deacetylase and FpGalactosaminidase, which, when used in combination, “have been described to effectively convert group A (ABO-A) red blood cells (RBCs) to group O (ABO-O)”.<\/p>\n The study found that the treatment reduced antibody binging, complement deposition, and antibody-mediated injury, meaning that type A donor lung antibodies can be depleted with EVLP treatment.<\/p>\n While the study is just a proof of concept, the researchers behind it believe that the process can be expanded to improve organ allocation fairness.<\/p>\n The research is the latest of several scientific projects to reduce the organ donor waiting list. Two previous projects saw genetically-modified pig organs successfully transplanted into human recipients.<\/p>\n In January 2021, a team of doctors from the University of Maryland School of Medicine achieved a world first<\/a><\/strong> by successfully transplanting a genetically modified pig heart into a human patient.<\/p>\n Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Centre say the procedure demonstrated that a genetically modified animal heart could function in the human body without immediate rejection.<\/p>\n Before that, Surgeons from the University of Alabama (UAB) at Birmingham successfully attached a genetically-altered pig kidney to a human<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n The operation saw the kidneys transferred to the abdomen of a 57-year-old brain-dead man whose own kidneys were entirely removed.<\/p>\n The study showed that genetically-altered kidneys could work as a replacement for human kidneys. However, the researchers said that some improvements could still be made to certain parts of the procedure.<\/p>\n A team of scientists have developed a way to make organs from type A donors compatible with recipients of other blood types.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":434798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[31750],"tags":[76792,76790,75874,76786,76788],"class_list":["post-434794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","tag-cypel-lab","tag-marcelo-cypel","tag-organ-transplants","tag-toronto-general-hospital-research-institute","tag-university-of-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434794"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":434808,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434794\/revisions\/434808"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nNow read: South African space agency getting a new board<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"