One of the most fascinating and rewarding science projects has been the ongoing improvements made in organ transplantation. When a diseased organ is replaced by another human being’s organ and this procedure increases the life of the patient it is nothing short of a miracle.

The first successful organ transplantation took place in 1954 when Ronald Lee Herrick donated his kidney to his identical twin brother. The organ transplantation elongated his brother’s life by 8 years. The monozygotic twins were easily able to handle the transfer as the organ was not rejected by the body’s defence system as a foreign object.

Organ transplantation is a major surgical process which has come a long way since the first heart transplant by Dr Christiaan Barnard. In 1967 Dr Barnard transplanted the heart of a brain dead woman into a new body where it beat for 18 more days. The feat opened the flood gates and organ transplantation gradually became mainstream rather than experimental procedures.

Today the trouble is that we have the technology, but not enough organ donors. Most organs are harvested from old people who died natural deaths after 65 years. This makes the quality of the organs being transplanted poor. Accident victims who are brain dead, or suffer irreversible cardiac failure are better sources.

Often organs can not be harvested because it is unknown if the person wanted to donate them or not. The relatives of the deceased are too overwrought at the time to take the decision and good organs can get wasted. Perhaps  a science project expounding why one must become an organ donor would be a good idea to raise awareness about the issue.