IIAM Launches Neonatal Donation Program
The International Institute for the Advancement of Medicine, IIAM, has established a Neonatal Donor Program to provide neonatal organs and tissues for medical research, education and development. This program offers a unique service to the research community and to families of babies with terminal diagnoses.
To date, IIAM has assisted nearly a dozen of these special families in donating organs and tissues for groundbreaking medical exploration.
- Neonatal lungs help researchers to identify and track the function of lung stem cells and of many other cell types that comprise the complex organ. These efforts will provide thebasis for the development of treatments for asthma, COPD and a multitude of other adult and childhood pulmonary diseases as well as treating lung airway disorders that result from premature deliveries.
- Neonatal livers are utilized to enhance understanding of hepatitis and other liver diseases like fibrosis and cirrhosis, and to aid in the development of safer medicines.
- Neonatal pancreata are analyzed to gather vital information about how the pancreas develops in hopes of discovering a cure for insulin-dependent Type 1 Diabetes.
“These extremely rare tissues are invaluable to medical researchers and to donor families whose personal loss may somehow find meaning through these precious donations,” said Gina Dunne Smith, General Manager of IIAM. “The sacrifices made by donor families are the ultimate gift.”
Founded in 1986, IIAM is the world-leading provider of normal and diseased non-transplantable human organs and tissues for medical research, education and development. Human tissues enable faster development of more efficacious drugs with improved safety profiles and enhanced understanding of basic disease processes that directly affect people. With access to almost 14,000 organs each year, IIAM makes it possible for qualified researchers, scientists, healthcare and biotech professionals to obtain fresh human organs to explore cures for diseases, and to develop new drugs, therapies and medical devices.