$1 Million New Organ Liver Prize Announced

The Methuselah Foundation just announced the New Organ Liver Prize with an award of $1 million to any team which successfully creates a bioengineered liver.

The announcement was made at the ongoing World Stem Cell Summit by the Methuselah Foundation. To win the $1 million cash prize, the winning team will need to create a bioengineered liver tissue with a patient’s own cells and replace it with the native liver. Among other terms included in the challenge is minimum three month survival with the new bioengineered liver in a large mammal. International team can participate, with registration currently open.

The wait list for new donor organs is growing exponentially and there are no current alternative source of organs are available, pushing many patients to an early death. Even patients who receive a compatible organ, face challenges in the form of the body refusing to accept the new organ as one of its own, among other economic and health reasons. With the aim of bringing an end to this problem, the New Organ Liver Prize will be followed by Heart, Lung and other bioengineered organ challenges in the future to push researchers to focus on this area.

Correction: New Organ Prize is hosted by Methuselah Foundation, not by the X-Prize Foundation as stated earlier. The X-Prize Foundation endorses New Organ Prize.