Liver
The liver plays a major role in breaking down drugs, toxins and carcinogens in the body. But because there are major differences between animals in how the liver breaks down various compounds, animal tests often cannot adequately indicate the danger a drug or environmental compound might pose to people. With the ultimate goal of developing a more reliable way to test new drugs and potential environmental toxins or carcinogens, researchers need human livers to:
- Assess what nutrients, hormones and other factors are needed to successfully culture human liver cells that can be used for testing;
- Determine if human liver cells that have been frozen and then thawed can be used for testing;
- Discover differences between animals and humans as well as between individuals in how drugs are broken down by the liver, and;
- Study drug-induced changes in gene activity that affect the liver’s ability to break down various drugs and toxins. Such genetic changes might explain drug interactions that can cause the failure of oral contraceptives, for example, or lead to fatal complications when more than one drug is taken simultaneously.
Researchers need donated livers delivered within 24 hours post cross clamp. NDRI places whole or lobes of liver and will take liver donations from donors up to age 80 years as long as there is no severe cirrhosis or hepatitis or HIV. Fat content of the liver also must be below 80 percent. Flush and store liver donations in histidine-tryptophan-ketoglutarate (HTK) solution or in University of Wisconsin (UW) solution.