The ‘LifeBox,’ according to the IISc researchers, is a system that extends the preservation time of the organ, specifically the heart for now, and allows for increased travel time and distances.
One of the most important and innovative initiatives of the Indian traffic police is the Green Corridor—a special on-road route to enable harvested organs like the heart and liver to travel to another hospital where they are needed for the purpose of a transplant.
The initiative facilitates the manual operation of street signals, to avoid red lights and peak traffic and greatly reduces the transport time of organs in cities.
You can read in detail about what Green Corridors are and how they saved the lives of two heart patients in Mumbai, here.
Green Corridors arose out of the need to deliver organs on time as they cannot be preserved for long. The conventional method used to transport the organs is the ice-box which functions as a container and tries to preserve the organ for a specified time period.
However, what medical personnel need is something that extends the life of the organ, and this is what a team at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has managed to create with a new state-of-the-art innovation—the LifeBox.
The LifeBox was developed by research students Deval Karia, and Rohit S Nambiar and they were supervised by Prof B Gurumoorthy and Prof Ashitava Ghosal of the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM).
“The established method of ‘ice-box’ storage coupled with a ‘Green Corridor’ based transport has several drawbacks. The window is narrow, and it requires a tremendous amount of effort and coordination between several regulatory authorities,” says Prof Ashitava Ghosal to the Times Of India.
The ‘LifeBox,’ according to the IISc researchers, is a system that extends the preservation time of the organ, specifically the heart for now, and allows for increased travel time and distances.
The LifeBox achieves the extension of the preservation time by a medically prescribed method which impedes heart metabolism through the proper control of temperature and metabolites. It also keeps pumping in liquid, allowing the heart to perform its pumping function, even on the move, continuously.
It is clear that the LifeBox, along with other upcoming technologies like drones and UAVs, is a promising alternative to the methods being used currently.
“In comparison to a benchmark device currently undergoing FDA approval in the USA, this new design has helped achieve an estimated 91% reduction in energy consumption and a 65% reduction in weight for a six-hour preservation time. We are working on patenting the innovation,” the researchers said to TOI.
(Edited by Gayatri Mishra)
Hey, you may also like: Mumbai Schools Start Organ Donation Lessons, Do Their Bit to Spread Awareness!
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