When it comes to organ donation, time is everything. As soon as an organ has been carefully removed from a donor’s body, it starts to deteriorate. Surgeons have a matter of hours to get it into a recipient. Leave it too long and the organ will become unusable.
In most cases, organs will be kept on ice during that time, at around 4 °C (39 °F). They cannot be frozen—in previous attempts, ice has formed, causing all kinds of damage.
Matthew Powell Palm at Texas A&M University and his colleagues have an alternative solution—a device that allows organs to be cooled to -4 °C (25 °F) without forming any ice.
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