TechKnow

Lungs in a box

TechKnow explores a new technology which could be a game-changer in the organ retrieval process.

TechKnow explores how the latest scientific discoveries around the globe are changing our lives.

Note: Some of the images shown in this programme may disturb sensitive viewers.

You can expand your region of where you are willing to take lungs from .... Travel is a non-factor.

by Michael Smith, surgical director of lung trasplantation at St Joseph's hospital

Breathing usually happens so naturally that most people never even think about it – until something goes wrong.

Currently 1,600 people are on a waiting list in the United States, all desperate for a lung transplant.

On this edition of TechKnow, contributor Dr Shini Somara follows a transplant team to understand how they rush into action whenever a donor organ becomes available.

We then explore a new technology which could be a game-changer in the organ retrieval process – a device that keeps lungs warm and breathing outside the human body, and which may eliminate time and distance factors from the organ transplant process.

Contributor Marita Davison, a biologist specialising in ecology and evolution, then joins researchers at Cal State University’s shark lab who are developing a submersible robot that follows sharks and measures a range of enviromental conditions.

Davison takes a dip in the underwater lab and meets the waterproof robot that follows the elusive sea-creatures around, in an attempt to offer us a window into their natural behaviour.

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