As the science of organ transplantation advances, the biggest hurdles are logistical and mostly related to the speed of transportation.

Not too long ago, after hundreds of test flights, a drone took a human lung from the rooftop of Toronto Western Hospital to Toronto General Hospital in five minutes for a successful transplant. The corresponding time for road transport is 25 minutes.

“A successful trial is a milestone for organ transplants, especially organs such as the heart and lungs, which can withstand less time on ice,” says Joseph Scalea, a transplant surgeon now at the Medical University of South Carolina.

Toronto General Hospital (which performed the first successful lung transplant in 1983) and Unither Bioelectronics replaced the drone chassis with a carbon fiber container for the large and fragile organ. The team improved the drone’s connectivity so that radio frequencies didn’t interfere with its GPS, and installed a parachute that would automatically deploy in the event of a mid-air malfunction.

The director of the Toronto-based lung transplant program General suggests that drones will transport lungs even further. But for now, he’s focused on the airport-to-hospital journey, which takes 40 minutes by car and just eight by drone, and expects the first such flights this summer.

“When the Wright brothers left Kitty Hawk, they only flew 120 feet the first time,” he says. “Now look where the air service is.”

Source: Scientific American.