Charles Lee

• University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Liver cryopreservation has the potential to enable indefinite organ banking. This study investigated vitrification—the ice-free cryopreservation of livers in a glass-like state—as a promising alternative to conventional cryopreservation, which uniformly fails due to damage from ice formation or cracking. Our unique “nanowarming” technology, which i...

Purpose Herein, we evaluate the use of MRI as a tool for assessing iron oxide nanoparticle (IONP) distribution within IONP perfused organs and vascularized composite allografts (VCAs) (i.e., hindlimbs) prepared for cryopreservation. Methods Magnetic resonance imaging was performed on room‐temperature organs and VCAs perfused with IONPs and were as...

With the successful testing of the immunosuppressive effects of cyclosporine in transplant patients in 1978, the field of organ transplants began an exponential growth. With that, the field of organ preservation became increasingly important as the need to increase preservation time and improve graft function became paramount. However, for every pa...

Hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP) has the potential to improve recovery and preservation of Donation after Cardiac Death (DCD) livers, including uncontrolled DCD livers. However, current perfusion solutions lack the needed substrates to improve energy recovery and minimize hepatic injury, if warm ischemic time (WIT) is extended. This proof-of-con...

We previously reported that hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP) for liver preservation is feasible, but hepatic microcirculatory dysfunction and significant liver damage remain major obstacles in its application when the preservation is extended to 24 h. The underlying injury mechanism is not well understood. The present study sought to investigate...

Hypothermic perfusion preservation (HPP) was an integral step in the development of early clinical transplantation programmes, and considerable progress was made in understanding the basic principles underlying the technique. In subsequent years, the development of better preservation solutions for cold hypoxic storage, along with pragmatic choices...

Hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP) has a potential to relieve the current donor liver crisis by providing an improved and extended preservation method. This study examined the effect of HMP on hepatocellular functions, using a prototype liver transporter capable of preserving livers for 24 hours. Livers obtained from adult farm pigs (28 to 32 kg b...

Liver transplantation is often the only effective treatment for end stage liver diseases resulting from cirrhosis, hepatitis, progressive jaundice, and biliary atresia. Hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP) preservation may enhance donor pool by extending preservation time and reclaiming marginal donor livers including those from non-heart beating do...

Although hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP) preservation has been shown to improve organ function and to expand the organ donor pool, problems still exist with the current HMP technology for liver preservation. The present study was conducted to investigate endothelial and hepatocellular functions following extended HMP (> r =24 hr) in rat liver m...

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of starch in the preservation solution during hypothermic machine perfusion (HMP) on endothelial cell and hepatocyte functions in an isolated perfused rat liver model. Livers isolated from male Sprague-Dawley rats were perfused with the University of Wisconsin (UW) solution (HMP + starch group); mo...

Non-heart-beating donor (NHBD) livers are an untapped source with the potential to provide relief to the current donor shortage problem. Hypothermic machine perfusion (MP) has the potential to reclaim and preserve these marginal donor organs. This study compared 5-day survival in a rat NHBD liver transplantation model with simple cold storage (SCS)...

The shortage of donor organs for liver transplantation requires investigations into expanding the donor pool. Non-heart beating donor (NHBD) livers are an untapped source of organs. NHBD organs are those that have had a period of warm ischemia prior to cold preservation. A main concern of NHBD livers is that there is a depletion of energy stores du...

Hypothermic machine perfusion preservation has the potential to relieve the current donor shortage problem by reclaiming and preserving marginal donor organs including those from viable non-heart-beating donors. A number of problems exist with the current machine perfusion technology for preserving livers, and much research is needed to determine t...

The development of machine perfusion preservation (MPP) of kidney has led to significant improvements and greater success rates in kidney transplantation by providing superior preserved tissue and viable non-heart-beating donor tissue. However, machine perfusion of livers has not been successful in improving preservation. Currently, the major cause...

Hypothermic machine perfusion preservation (MPP) has proven to be a successful technique for hypothermic kidney storage, however this technology has not successfully been applied to the liver. Recent research has indicated that the endothelial cells lining the liver sinusoids display rounding phenomena during MPP that is not fully understood. In or...

Background. Hypothermic machine perfusion preservation (MPP) has the potential to relieve the current donor shortage problem by providing superior preserved tissue and viable non-heart-beating donor tissue. For the liver, MPP has not improved preservation. Currently, the major cause of damage associated with MPP of livers is unknown. Methods. An in...

We transplanted rat livers cryopreserved at high subzero temperatures with a protocol that mimics freezing in freeze-tolerant animals. The results of nine transplants show that: (a) every single transplanted liver produced bile, which suggests that the cryopreserved livers retained some physiological function; (b) eight of the animals survived betw...

As part of a more extensive study on the use of high subzero freezing for cryopreservation of mammalian livers we have tried to single out the effects of freezing and thawing on tissue damage. We compared the morphology of livers after freezing and thawing with what we considered an optimal high subzero cryopreservation protocol with the morphology...