Wanted: a talented student with ambition to participate for at least 6 months in a project, entitled:

Development of an organ incubator

Life-threatening complications after liver transplantation commonly result from pre-transplantation poor quality of the liver, of a small-for- size liver or reperfusion complications after storage. However, the increasing use of marginal donors, characterized by older age and overweight) expose to recipients to a higher risk of liver failure and major complications. Therefore, improving donor organ quality  is pivotal for many transplant patients.  

Machine perfusion is one of the most promising solutions to limit liver injury during storage. Hypothermic machine perfusion (4-10⁰C) and normothermic (37⁰C) machine perfusion of donor livers are potential options for organ preservation: offering oxygen supply to the liver and the removal of waste products. Furthermore, it is possible to asses graft quality during preservation and possibly improve graft quality with extra-corporal drug treatment.

However, the perfusion machines currently available are not suited for long term (>24 hours) preservation of organs and do not allow the implementation of innovative techniques requiring more  perfusion time to improve organ quality. Moreover, other techniques in combination with machine perfusion cannot be fully explored, including repopulation with new cells of damaged organs. 

We're looking for an ambitious student who is interested in flow dynamics, control systems and technique development enabling optimal simulation of normal physiology in long term liver perfusion. The aim of the project is to develop an organ incubator that will enable a significant improval of liver organs 

The project will be conducted In collaboration with a team from the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam. 

for further information, please contact

Prof J Dankelman,  TU Delft (j.dankelman@tudelft.nl) or  

Prof J IJzermans, Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam (j.ijzermans@erasmusmc.nl)