Organ transplants: a marine worm could help to save lives

Organ transplant today remains the only therapeutic solution for the majority of diseases that lead to irreversible loss of the function of vital organs such as the kidney, the heart, the liver or the lungs. More than one million people across the world have thus been saved from death or are living a life of better quality after transplantation. There is nevertheless currently a deficit of donors compared with the number of people waiting for a transplant.

Two methods of conservation - both based on cooling of the organ to transplant - are currently used, namely static cold storage and machine perfusion. The low temperature slows down the metabolism of the organ thereby reducing its oxygen requirements. However, although it is reduced, the need for oxygen remains and none of the conservation methods currently used is capable of providing oxygen in sufficient quantities. The improvement in organ conservation protocols is one of the envisaged means of avoiding damaging the organs and thereby increasing the pool of available grafts.

Improving organ conservation to increase the pool of potential donors

The objective of the HEMO2Perf project, which has been funded for 36 months by ANR under the 2011 edition of its RPIB programme (Biomedical Innovation in public-private Research Partnership), is to evaluate the extent to which Hemo2life, an extracellular haemoglobin and therapeutic molecule derived from the marine lugworm Arenicola marina, could be used to improve the conservation of organs intended for transplantation. This substance can carry fifty times more oxygen than human haemoglobin and is compatible with all the blood groups. In an earlier study it has already reduced ischemia of the graft in a porcine kidney transplantation model. The results of this collaborative project between Hemarina, a private company, and a research team at INSERM (French National Institute for Health and Medical Research) are expected in a few months.

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