PMDs and Advancing Medicine

An ad I saw years ago has stuck with me. It said, “Donate organs, don’t bury them!”  

I remember that one, Dave. The fact remains that donated organs save lives and yet, the waiting list continues to be long.   

Our bodies are useful in other ways after we die. Medical students and researchers need human bodies for dissection and basic research.  Scientists have now created a new way for our deceased selves to be helpful. It’s called PMD which stands for “physiology maintained deceased;” when there is no brain function and the bodies are kept alive artificially through ventilation and assisted circulation for a limited time. This is beyond a coma or persistent vegetative state where there is still some brain activity.  

PMD bodies can respond to therapies, fight infection, and heal wounds which make them a great resource for advancing medicine.   

Even though we can do work in the lab with cell cultures and animals, they don’t translate well to humans. As my first research mentor would say -- we have cured cancer in mice many times but they just don’t work in humans.  We can use PMDs to test animal organ transplantation, keep human organs alive until they can be transplanted, test new drugs and therapies, and lower the cost of clinical trials.   

We’ll need strict bioethical and medical guidelines as well as rigorous public debate to move forward with PMDs. One day, people may choose to advance medicine by gifting their bodies to this area of research.