biostasis cocktail

The biostasis cocktail is an experimental organ preservation formulation developed by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and the University Health Network. Inspired by the natural suspended animation capabilities of mammalian hibernators, the cocktail is designed to extend the static cold storage (SCS) time of donor hearts and mitigate ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI). In preclinical rodent models, preconditioning donor hearts with the biostasis cocktail in University of Wisconsin (UW) storage solution at 4°C extended out-of-body viability to 48 hours and improved normothermic recovery for up to 4 hours, successfully maintaining viability for a total of 52 hours post-harvest. Hearts treated with the cocktail demonstrated similar lactate output, oxygen consumption, and vascular resistance to fresh controls, with a 50% recovery in heart rate and no arrhythmogenic behavior upon reperfusion.