Drones: Precious cargo

Dr. Joseph Scalea of the University of Maryland Medical Center believes that unmanned aircraft can become key links in a logistics chain that has seen little innovation in the 60-year history of human organ transplantation. A series of research flights in April 2018, including one that covered about 3 miles with a human kidney in the payload package—all within visual line of sight—demonstrated that a human organ can be transported by drone and arrive at its destination every bit as viable as it started.

Matt Scassero, director of the UM unmanned aircraft test center, said his staff developed a phased testing approach to build on the initial test flights in the coming year, possibly culminating in the transport of a human organ implanted in a recipient. For the test, the team was provided with a human kidney that was not healthy enough to be given to a recipient; the donor’s family agreed to allow its use in medical research.

The team selected a DJI M600 hexacopter for the organ transport flight test, and developed an electronic remote monitoring system, the Human Organ Monitoring and Quality Assurance Apparatus for Long-Distance Travel, or HOMAL, which monitored temperature, vibration, and GPS location of the organ during flight. Telemetry data from the HOMAL, along with preflight and postflight biopsies of the kidney, confirmed that the organ had not suffered damage during its trip through the southern Maryland sky, a round-trip flight that began and ended among the hangars of St. Mary’s County Regional Airport.

UAS Pilot Ryan Henderson said that cooperative weather, with clear skies and calm winds, helped make the flights, the longest of which lasted about 12 minutes and extended just beyond the airport property, relatively simple. The team had prepared for the organ’s arrival by test-flying the aircraft fitted with an empty insulated cooler and monitoring system, and confirmed that the sensor package that Scalea developed—which transmits data through a cellphone network—would not interfere with the aircraft controls.

The team had about 48 hours’ notice ahead of the organ arrival, an unusually long lead time compared to some organ transportation missions where a living recipient is waiting, but still a tight timetable. In the coming months, the team hopes to be entrusted with a kidney that a surgeon will ultimately implant, the next major step toward Scalea’s vision of making this kind of mission routine.

“We plan to move forward, we plan to learn more about the barriers of entry to organ drone transportation, with the goal of improving the quality of life for organ transplant recipients,” Scalea said. He believes thousands of organs that might otherwise be lost could be matched with recipients, saving thousands of lives and improving the quality of life for recipients by reducing the transport time, and the damage that is done during the interval between the organ’s harvest and implantation.

There are regulatory hurdles to be cleared, both in the air and in the medical community. Future organ transportation flights will involve operations in controlled airspace and beyond visual line of sight; current regulations require human organs intended for transplantation be accompanied by medical staff at all times.

UMD UAS Test Site Project Manager Jim Alexander said the 2018 flight left him with a lasting memory: During the final operational readiness review, Scalea noted that the mission was made possible by the generous donation a grieving family had authorized.

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