BIOL 488: The Organ Crisis: A Problem With More Questions Than Answers

The organ donation process is broken, as there are significantly more people that are waiting for organs than there are organs that are available. According to the American Transplant Foundation, there are approximately 114,00 recipients on the organ donation waitlist. Of those 114,000 patients, more than 95% of them are waiting on either a kidney or a liver. While many patients are given the opportunity to live their lives while waiting for an organ, whether it is through dialysis or their condition is stable enough to not be hospitalized, others are not that fortunate. Some high-risk patients are placed on the waitlist for 3-5 years, or even longer if a more suitable recipient is chosen. Patients accrue enormous hospitalizationbills, and may need to be hospitalized more frequently as their condition worsens. This can leave families without a means of income, or children without a caregiver, making this process one that effects those well-beyond the actual patient. Organ donation in the United States has been highly controversial in the past, as it is a person choice, and one that not everyone chooses to make. Even if everyone made the decision to be an organ donor, not every organ would be right for donation, leaving a large gap in patient accessibility. There are four potentially viable options to solving the organ crisis: creating a legal market to buy and sell organs, utilizing animal organs for transplants, creating genetically modified organs through 3D bioprinting, and implementing the organ perfusion system.