Home Department: undeclared
Mentor: Jill Helms (Surgery - Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery)

“An Experimental Approach for Optimizing Conditions for Liver Preservation”

Successful liver transplantation depends upon maintaining liver viability during retrieval and preservation. The Helms lab aims to study two critical variables: the effect of temperature and the effect of preservation solutions on liver viability. Milo will utilize a newly established ex vivo liver slice system to address the extent of caspase-mediated programmed cell death and wnt-dependent stem cell activation to quantify the effects of storage temperature e.g., 0-4ºC, 5-8ºC, and +23ºC. The goal is to translate these findings into a novel strategy to limit ischemic damage in the liver, specifically in the time period between organ retrieval and transplant.