Courtesy: APTN
Scalea thinks that this idea of his will be an effective way to surpass the traffic problems in cities.
"I find myself routinely frustrated that we can't get an organ here in time to do the transplant because the transportation of the organ is is literally dependent on the timing of commercial aircraft flights," he says.
His team which also included the students of aerospace engineering from University of Maryland has made a modified six rotor drone which is in testing phase. They want to make sure if the drone would be able to transport a real kidney the distance that's typically required to go between two hospitals in the same city.
The reason they used a real kidney for the test was to keep a watch on the organ's temperature, amount of vibration caused by drone and other aspects of flight.
Dr Scalea says, "The tests were done on a single day. We had pre-planned each of the specific missions. We did some where we just we had the organ drone hover for a period of time, and we measured all the extrinsic forces that occurred."
Praising the drastic improvement in drone technology today he said, "Drone technologies are improving at a dramatic rate,", adding, "And it's pretty clear to me that those technologies are going to get to the point very soon where we will be able to employ them in a meaningful way to transplantation transportation."
Dr Scalea's team has submitted an application to National Institutes of Health to move their research forward.
"This is one of the things that's going to help humans, help Americans, and help improve the outcomes of donated organs, and save thousands and thousands of lives," he says.
As drones are increasingly being used for other purposes than in warfare, chances are that in the area of organ transport for quick transplantation too, they will be used widely in the coming days. And when that becomes a reality, it will help save hundreds of lives.