First Heart - Lung Decelluarization in Russia

The novel equipment ORCA (Organ Regeneration Collection Analysis) Bioreactor - system specially designed to meet the needs of the regenerative medicine – was installed and started up in the Center of Regenerative Medicine of Kuban state medical university. The system is able to address the needs of both the decellularization (total cell removal) and recellularization (seeding with living cells) processes of various organs.  As amatter of fact this system allows creation of a new organ. Bioreactors installation is a platform for development and introduction of new regenerative technologies, new direction of global medicine development.

The system was purchased in the frames of the Megagrant of the Government of the Russian Federation. This grant was won by the University together with regenerative surgery Professor of Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Paolo Macchiarini. Two unique tracheal transplantations were performed at the Regional clinical hospital N1; the tracheas for these transplantations were created with the use of nanocomposite artificial scaffold seeded with the patient’s cells.

Research starting at the Center of regenerative medicine of Kuban state medical university now opens up the possibilities for creation not only trachea, but other vital organs as well such as heart and lung in the future.

There are two types of bioreactors installed in Krasnodar – for work with isolated organs of small and large animals, which are equipped with special cameras for heart, lungs, esophagus and trachea. Physiological conditions can be mimicked through control algorithms that regulate flow rates, profiles, and pressures.

At the present moment only 12 laboratories all over the world are equipped with facilities of this kind. 10 of them are located in USA and only 2 are in Europe – at Karolinska Institute, Sweden, and at Kuban state medical university, Russia.

Harvard Apparatus company specialists – producers of the equipment - started to train the specialists from the Center of regenerative medicine of KSMU to work with the “life reactors”.

Cooperation with the researchers from Harvard is the small part of the vast collaboration, built in the frames of the project. It includes a number of Russian and foreign scientific and medical centers operating in various fields of science. Recently there were reached two agreements with Research institute of medical primatology RAMS and polymer materials laboratory RDE “Kurchatov Institute”.