Mother uncovers lasting impact of baby son's organ donation
Latching onto hope for something positive to come from heartache, Gray donated some of Thomas' tissue for scientific research — his eyes, his liver, his umbilical cord blood.
Yet critical medical research in labs around the country depends on scientists' ability to work with human cells and organs, so they can study both normal development and how disease does its dirty work.
Only when Gray persisted late in pregnancy did she learn, from the Washington area's organ procurement agency, that her baby's organs probably would be too small for transplant but that donation for research was an option.
Statistics from the United Network for Organ Sharing show that organs from a dozen newborns, those younger than a month old, were donated last year for transplant.
On the research front, Dr. Arupa Ganguly of the University of Pennsylvania studies retinoblastoma, eye cancer that attacks young children.
Blood from the umbilical cords of both Thomas and his healthy identical twin Callum already had been shipped to Duke University researchers studying what causes anencephaly.
[...] during a business trip to Boston, she called the Harvard-affiliated eye lab, identified herself as a donor mom, and asked for a tour — a first for the lab, and one that changed the scientists' perspective.
A North Carolina biotechnology company, Cytonet, uses liver cells in researching treatment for babies awaiting a liver transplant.