This is Scientific American 60 Second Science.

I'm Cynthia Graber.

Got a minute?

If you need a new liver, doctors have about 12 hours to transport it from a donor.

That ticking clock severely limits the ability of

doctors to get organs to patients. Now researchers have demonstrated a method that

kept rat livers viable up to four days. The scientists lowered the livers to below freezing temperatures while

flooding the tissue with antifreeze chemicals to prevent the formation of damaging ice crystals.

But such cooling alone is not sufficient, due in part to the liver's wide variety of cell types and functions.

So the researchers also used machine perfusion.

As the livers were cooled, they were fleshed with solutions that kept them operational.

They were perfused again as they were brought back to

above freezing temps. All the rats that were implanted with three-day-old

livers survived for three months. Nearly 60% of the rats with four-day-old

liver survived. In contrast, no rats that received three and four-day-old

livers preserved by currently used methods survived. This work is an early step towards creating a system that could work in humans,

which would dramatically improve the chances of getting organs to people who desperately need them.

Thanks for the Minute. For Scientific American 60 Second Science, I'm Cynthia Graber.