Can death be reversed? Yale study hints a kind of ‘do-over’ may be possible

Yale researchers restored circulation and cell activity in the organs of pigs an hour after they died. The research raises questions about whether death is always permanent.

The latest study builds on 2019 work by the same scientists, which revived the brains of pigs four hours after they died.

The new findings, reported in Nature, are important because they strongly suggest that our perceptions of the body’s limitations may be fundamentally flawed. The study, along with the earlier research, demonstrates that it is possible to revive activity in dead cells, organs or tissues.

In their experiment, researchers stopped the heart in several pigs that had been anesthetized. An hour later, the researchers were able to restart the circulation using a Yale-developed system called OrganEx, which involves a special machine and a solution that carries oxygen and other components to promote cellular health and suppress inflammation. The solution slowed decomposition of the bodies and quickly restored some organ function, such as heart contraction and activity in the liver and kidney.

“We made cells do something they weren’t able to do” when the animals were dead, said team member Zvonimir Vrselja, a neuroscientist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. "We were able to show that we can persuade cells not to die."

Study authors warn that their results do not show that the pigs have somehow been reanimated after death. But the work moves in the right direction – not because it offers the promise of restoring life, but because it may help us to better preserve organs for transplantation. That would extend the shelf life of organs and permit the creation of organ banks.

Consider the facts: About 90,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant in this country. Nearly 5,000 die each year, waiting for that kidney. And yet, in 2020 more than 5,000 kidneys were discarded.

Some age-related diseases stem from the fact that our organs wear out or become damaged. Replacing a damaged organ can give an otherwise healthy person many more years of life.

This is what we imagined when we developed the seven strategies that guide Methuselah Foundation investments, planning and policies. In particular, the need for longer organ shelf life is an example of “new parts for people,” a strategy focused on technologies to make available replacement parts of our bodies, including organs, cartilage, bones and vasculature. We envision a day when replacing organs will be as easy as replacing parts in a car.

It is one key problem we must overcome to reach our goal of making 90 the new 50 by 2030. We’re excited that Yale’s work may bring us a step closer to it.