Is Life After Death Possible? Cells & Organs Revived In Dead Pigs In Potential Breakthrough

New Delhi: Death is the ultimate reality of life and no living being can escape from its shackles. The concept of resurrecting from death would certainly sound abstract and farfetched. After all, not everyone is Jesus!

But it seems like that could possibly change in the near future. In a breakthrough moment, researchers have developed a new technology that can keep organ cells alive for hours after the rest of the body dies.

Experts hope that this can quell the dire need for more transplantable hearts, kidneys and livers.

Researchers at Yale University developed 'OrganEx' - an offshoot of the breakthrough 'BrainEx' technology designed by scientists at the New Haven, Connecticut school in 2019. 

The device delivers fluid-containing compounds that enhance cellular health and prevent inflammation in the organs, thereby keeping them alive for up to six hours after the rest of the body dies.

This research was performed on pigs, but the researchers are hopeful that their experimental process will be effective on human organs as well.

If the results pan out to be accurate, then the supply of available hearts, kidneys and livers for transplant could be significantly increased and it could even help extend the lives of some people stuck on the waiting list.

With more than 105,000 Americans waiting for an organ transplant - and 17 losing their lives each day - researchers are hoping these findings can help improve and extend the lives of millions down the line.

The study's lead researcher told the media that these discoveries 'could one day significantly increase organ availability.'

The research team, who published their findings on Wednesday in Nature, induced cardiac arrest on anaesthetized pigs in order to determine how their bodily functions would react to the compound.

An hour went by, and then they used a device similar to machines that keep the heart and lungs pumping during surgery to prop the pigs' organs while delivering them the substance.

Areas of key cell function were still active in the pigs' bodies six hours after their death and some organ functioning had even been restored after death.

'We were also able to restore circulation throughout the body, which amazed us,' Dr Nenad Sestan, a neuroscience professor at Yale who led the study, said in a statement. 

They also detected a return of electrical activity in the heart, thereby allowing it to continue pumping.

Sestan went on to explain that organs swell and blood vessels collapse when the heart stops pumping, as a result of which, the circulation of blood in the body comes to a halt.

Pigs that received OrganEx did not show these same signs of collapse after receiving the treatment.

Some of the pigs' motor functions were maintained as well, with the animals still spontaneously displaying muscle movement in the head and neck even after death.

Meanwhile, these latest findings come in the backdrop of a medical breakthrough at Yale in 2019. At the time, a research team was able to restore the brain functions of a pig four hours after it had died.

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