Transplant Organs Are Now Being Delivered By Drones

In a first for human medicine and aviation technology, a University of Maryland unmanned aircraft has delivered a donor kidney to surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore for successful transplantation in a patient with kidney failure. This successful demonstration illustrates the potential of unmanned aircraft systems for providing organ deliveries that, in many cases, could be faster, safer, and more widely available than traditional transport methods.

This comes after 3 years of work to show that you can actually safely transport organs on an unmanned aircraft, according to the Baltimore Sun. Until now, an organ that was going any sort of substantial distance was put on a pricey chartered flight or commercial flight. However, AiRXOS company came along and has been able to help.

And while, yes, the drone only traveled 2.6 miles for ten minutes in this particular case it’s the fact that it can be done and improved upon for future uses. Of course, drone transportation won’t fix the shortage of organ donations, but it can help in cases of sensitive medical deliveries and possible (hopefully) bring the astronomical costs down for patients and their families.