Organ Donor Research: It Is Time for Much Needed Clarity.

When faced with the grim landscape of morbidity and mortality attributable to the organ shortage, the medical community intuitively looks to research for solutions. Basic discoveries vetted in the literature, followed by rigorous testing in increasingly relevant animal models, and culminating in prospective, randomized trials that prove safety and efficacy delineate the classical pathway of medical advances. While there has been considerable effort expended in the realm of basic science to explore mechanisms of organ injury during brain death and identify interventions to mitigate this injury, astonishingly little has progressed beyond an initial stage of discovery to reach the clinical arena (1).