Maryland Test Confirms Drones Can Safely Deliver Human Organs

IEEE Spectrum reports on a successful text by the University of Maryland Medical center involving drone transportation of organs. "When a patient who needs an organ transplantation is finally matched with a donor, every second matters. A longer wait between when an organ is removed from a donor and when it is placed into a recipient is associated with poorer organ function following transplantation. To maximize the chances of success, organs must be shipped from A to B as quickly and as safely as possible—and a recent test run suggests that drones are up to the task. One transplant surgeon’s personal experience at the operating table, waiting for organs to arrive, prompted him to think of new forms of delivery. 'I frequently encounter situations where there’s simply no way to get an organ to me fast enough to do a transplant, and then those life-saving organs do not get transplanted into my patient,' says Dr. Joseph Scalea of the University of Maryland Medical Center. 'And that’s frustrating, so I wanted to develop a better system for doing that.'"

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The article in its entirety can be read here.