India Aims to Overcome Shortage of Organ Donation

India's Department of Biotechnology has decided to give a big push for research in tissue engineering aimed at eventually creating human organs.

Organ transplantation is one of the great advances in modern medicine. Unfortunately, the need for organ donors is much greater than the number of people who actually donate.

Organ donation is the process of surgically removing an organ or tissue from one person (the organ donor) and placing it into another person (the recipient). India's Department of Biotechnology has decided to give a big push for research in "tissue engineering" aimed at eventually creating human organs in a dish apparently for overcoming the problems of donor organ shortages.

Organ Donation At the Break Of Diwali Saves Six
Heart, kidneys and liver of two women who were declared brain dead were harvested and allotted to six others who needed them.

‘Growing the whole organ like a heart to replace the damaged one or regenerate a new kidney from a patient's own cells would be a leap forward.’

The Department has invited "concept proposals" from Indian scientists for regeneration of heart, liver, pancreas, skin, tooth, eye and bone -- complete with muscle, tendon and marrow -- in the laboratory.

The Department announcement says the above were "candidate" organs for development but scientists may propose for funding any other organ for regeneration "provided there is a clear credible evidence for such a choice".

Tissue engineering is a multi-disciplinary field which evolved from the field of biomaterial development. It refers to the practice of combining scaffolds, cells and biologically active molecules into functional tissues.

Canadian Donation Policy Has Raised Organ Donation in Ontario by 57%
Since 2006, Ontario organ donation has increased after the implementation of a new Canadian policy, Donation after Circulatory determination of death (DCD).

It has become an established protocol for the bioengineering of living tissues using engineered "scaffolds" that cells can populate and allow for regeneration of tissues that can be fully functional.

Elsewhere in the world, bladders, small arteries, skin grafts and cartilage have been implanted in patients, but the procedures are still experimental and tissue engineering plays only a small role in patient treatment.

Demand and Supply Ratio of Organ Donation is Screwed Up
Every year, 90% people in need of a critical organ to save their life end up facing death due to unavailability of donors.

Tissues of complex organs like heart, lung and liver have been successfully recreated in the lab, but they are a long way from being ready for implant into a patient. Growing the whole organ like a heart to replace the damaged one or regenerate a new kidney from a patient's own cells would be a leap forward.

According to the Department, the success of tissue engineering methods has now generated strong interest in the next level of whole organ development wherein the tools of tissue engineering are integrated with engineering and process technologies, molecular biology and developmental biology to generate working organs for transplant.

Framework for Organ Donation and Transplantation Research
Ethical, regulatory and policy framework to increase quantity and quality of donor organs for transplantation, was looked into by a new report.

The Department is now calling for a multi-institutional and multidisciplinary concept proposals from teams of scientists involving a minimum of three institutes, at least one of which must be a medical institution.

The project is being launched in a "mission mode" -- meaning high priority -- "with the specific goal of translating the results to clinical trials", but the Department's Kakali Dasgupta, who is in charge of the project, declined to reveal the budget allotted for it.

Source-IANS