Drone carries human kidney over Las Vegas desert in what could be the future of organ transport
Drones are used today for a variety of tasks – delivering small express packages, assisting in search and rescue operations and capturing stunning aerial views, to name just a few.
Get ready to add one more to the growing list: human organ transit.
Researchers at MissionGO, a provider of unmanned aviation solutions, and the Nevada Donor Network, an organ procurement organization, announced last week two successful test flights carrying a human organ and tissue via drones in Las Vegas.
The first flight on Sept. 17 transported research corneas from one hospital to another about 2½ miles away. On the same day, a second flight delivered research kidneys 10 miles, from an airport to a location outside a small town in the Las Vegas desert.
It marked the longest organ delivery flight in drone history, surpassing the distance of a historic April 2019 flight, when staff now with the MissionGO team transported a kidney from the Living Legacy Foundation in west Baltimore to the University of Maryland Medical Center downtown.
