Wednesday night marked the first of four free medical lectures called Mini Med School 2.0 that the University of Arizona medical program is hosting to provide in-depth coverage of informative topics over the next four months.
The first lecture, led by Dr. Zain Khalpey, focused on heart and lung transplants. About 100 to 150 people showed up, half students and half community members.
Among the numerous universities Khalpey attended are Imperial College London and Royal College of Surgeons of England. He did part of his residency and fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Khalpey has been with the University of Arizona for a year since he left Columbia University in New York. He said he switched to the University of Arizona because of the history and infrastructure of its medical program.
Additionally, Khalpey is the surgical director of the university’s Heart Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support Program, as well as the director of the Ex Vivo Lung Program, the Cardiopulmonary Stem Cell Biobank and the Clinical and Translational Research program.
Khalpey’s lecture was split into three parts. The first part focused on organ salvage, including topics such as increasing the longevity and preservation of organs. He mainly criticized the inefficiency of the way the medical field handles organ transplants. Approximately 49 percent of donor organs are unable to be recovered for a multitude of reasons, including poor organ function and disease.
Although the number of people on the waiting list for transplants has increased to 105,567, only 14,630 people have accounted for 28,463 transplants. Khalpey said the inefficiency can be remedied by finding donors from new scientific processes.
The second segment focused on organ reconditioning, specifically decellularization and reseeding. Decellularizing is the process of removing cells from an organ that is commonly used in organ transplants. Reseeding, in contrast, is the process of saving cells to grow more.
In an experiment he referenced, Khalpey decellularized 51 hearts and lungs without destroying the matrix, or bioskeleton, of the organ. Khalpey said when the matrix is decellularized, it is “reloaded with stem cells, the organ can be reimplanted.” This allows for unhealthy organs to be healed with stem cells and then reintroduced into the body.
Khalpey’s final portion focused on clinical trials and the 3-D bioprinting of organs. His lab has “already printed out a 3-D heart.” Khalpey said he hopes to be able to print out a heart to be used as a support system for other, unhealthy hearts.
Allison Otu, who became the director of outreach and communications for the University of Arizona medical program after spending five years in the public relations department at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, believes the lecture series allows those in the university’s medical program to fulfill their duty of sharing their learnings with the community. She also stated that the lectures are for “anyone with an interest in medicine.”
Khalpey said he thinks the lectures are about “growing minds” and teaching people to think “organically rather than linearly.”
ASU health sciences sophomore Kathryn Liu said she was excited to attend the lecture. She found it “interesting how he’s taking so many different approaches” with regard to Khalpey’s experiments. Her favorite part of Khalpey’s lecture was when he demonstrated how he was able to decellularize and reseed the organs.
The next lectures will take place in March, April and May.
Contact the reporter at mbarry5@asu.edu
