How to make your organs last longer | Quin Wills | TEDxNoVA

Summary

In this insightful talk, the speaker introduces 'Betty,' a revolutionary machine that can sustain a human liver outside the body for up to five days, allowing for advanced liver assessments before transplants. The presentation delves into cutting-edge RNA medicines designed to reprogram donor organs, potentially transforming the future of organ transplantation. It also touches on the challenges of developing therapies for chronic liver disease, advocating for a new approach that leverages AI and human collaboration to expedite the discovery and testing of life-saving treatments.

Takeaways

• 🔬 Betty is a machine that can keep a human liver alive outside the body for up to a day, used in clinics to assess liver health before transplants.
• 🏥 The Liver Intensive Care Unit (IU) in Manhattan is a unique facility where scientists, technologists, and clinicians work on extending the life of livers to five days using advanced technology.
• 💊 The project involves injecting livers with RNA medicine, a sophisticated method that can alter gene behavior and target specific liver cells, representing a new approach to liver medicine.
• 👨‍⚕️ The speaker has early-stage liver disease, highlighting the personal connection to the work and the urgency of finding solutions for liver health.
• 📈 Shocking statistics: one in three people may have liver issues, and one in six of us could live to be a hundred, facing chronic diseases of aging like liver failure.
• 🌐 The aging population is increasing, with one in four people expected to be over 60 in 30 years, raising concerns about the longevity and health of our organs.
• 🔬 The process of creating new medicines involves three steps: generating hypotheses, testing them, and conducting clinical trials, each with its own challenges.
• 🤖 AI and deep learning are used to analyze liver biopsies, creating detailed atlases from genes to cells to tissues, helping understand liver function and dysfunction.
• 🧪 Labs in Oxford and Taipei are working on human liver models, using both bottom-up and top-down approaches to study liver function and develop therapies.
• 💉 The goal is to develop therapies that can repair livers, potentially eliminating the need for transplants by using medicines that target specific liver cells.
• 💻 Computational models and AI avatars are being developed to predict liver responses, accelerating the process of developing new therapies and reducing costs.

Q & A

What is the primary function of the machine called Betty?

Betty is a machine designed to keep a human liver alive outside the body for up to a day. It is used in clinical settings to assess the health of livers before they are transplanted into another human being.

What is the purpose of the Liver Intensive Care Unit (LICU) in downtown Manhattan?

The LICU in downtown Manhattan is where a team of scientists, technologists, and clinicians are working to modify the use of liver machines to keep livers alive for not just one day, but up to five days. The goal is to treat organs as patients and improve their viability for transplantation.

What is the significance of the RNA medicine used in the liver machines?

The RNA medicine is a sophisticated form of treatment that is programmed to change the behavior of specific genes and target only very specific cells in the liver. This represents a new way of thinking about liver medicines, potentially reprogramming donor organs that are too old or diseased to be suitable for transplantation.

Why is there a focus on the liver in this context?

The focus on the liver is due to the speaker's personal experience with early stages of liver disease. Additionally, liver disease is a common condition that can lead to the need for a liver transplant, which is a critical and often life-saving procedure.

What is the 'scary statistic' mentioned in the script about liver transplants?

The 'scary statistic' is that if you end up on a liver transplant waiting list, there is a good chance you will die before a healthy enough liver is found for you.

What is the speaker's perspective on the aging population and its implications?

The speaker views the aging population as a potential 'aging epidemic' that could be as significant as global warming. The challenge is to create a society where people can live healthy lives into their 100s, which involves rethinking healthcare and treatment for chronic diseases of aging.

What are the three steps in developing a therapy to reduce scarring in human livers as described in the script?

The three steps are: 1) Idea phase (hypothesis generation) where potential genes affecting scarring are identified. 2) Testing the hypothesis and making a medicine, which often involves animal testing and can take many years. 3) Clinical trials in humans, which are lengthy, expensive, and often fail.

How does the speaker propose to address the challenges in developing transformative medicines for chronic diseases of aging?

The speaker suggests addressing the challenges by learning more about human biology, reducing reliance on animal models, and improving clinical trials to be less time-consuming, less expensive, and less risky.

What role does AI play in the process of studying and treating liver diseases as described in the script?

AI plays a crucial role in analyzing large and complex datasets from liver biopsies. It uses self-supervised deep neural networks to learn without human supervision, reducing complex data into simpler core elements that can be understood and collaborated on by humans. This helps in building detailed atlases from genes to cells to tissues to organs and whole patients.

What is the ultimate goal of the speaker's research and the use of AI in medicine?

The ultimate goal is to create a society of healthy 100-year-olds where people can live longer, healthier lives. The speaker hopes that their research and the use of AI will help in developing therapies that can repair organs like the liver, potentially eliminating the need for transplants.