X-Message-Number: 18401
From: "Jan Coetzee" <>
Subject: First thawed transplant success
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 18:32:32 -0500

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First thawed transplant successRat becomes pregnant from frozen ovaries.
24 January 2002 
TOM CLARKE

                 
                  The heat is still on for fast fresh organ transplants. 
                    SPL 
           
     


Researchers have successfully transplanted ovaries that had been stored in 
liquid nitrogen from one female rat to another.


Roger Gosden and colleagues at Notre-Dame Hospital in Montreal, Canada, are the 
first to demonstrate that entire organs can be safely stored and thawed1.


One of the banes of the transplant surgeon is that rare donor organs cannot be 
frozen for later use. Ice crystals grow between cells, puncturing them and 
destroying fragile tissues. People in need of new organs must wait for fresh 
ones to be donated. Many die waiting when acceptable donors cannot be found.


Gosden's team soaked fresh rat ovaries, with their fallopian tubes attached, in 
a protective solution. They then froze them slowly and stored them overnight in 
liquid nitrogen - a process called cryopreservation. Later, they thawed the 
organs and transplanted them into genetically identical rats, overcoming the 
problem of tissue rejection.


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