The COPE Consortium is funded through the EU's 7th Framework Programme on research, technological development and demonstration and is the official organ preservation task force of the European Society for Organ Transplantation (ESOT). The Consortium brings together academic institutions, clinical and scientific experts and small and medium sized enterprises from across Europe to work together on advancing organ preservation techniques.
The COPE consortium aims to advance and develop organ preservation technologies by performing clinical and translational studies with on-going experimental refinement. Through testing the quality and safety, increasing the efficiency and refining preservation strategies we set out to bring technologies from the bench to the bedside.
Focusing on three clinical trials and two experimental work programmes across Europe the Consortium is be working on improving preservation and reconditioning strategies for kidney and liver organs procured for transplantation. By exploiting collaborations between industry and academic institutions we aim to introduce organ preservation technologies that will increase the number and quality of grafts used for transplantation.
The four strategic objectives of the programme are:
1) To test in clinical trials a number of novel clinical approaches to repairing and preserving high-risk donor organs
2) To investigate in experimental models a number of novel scientific approaches to organ repair and regeneration.
3) To develop new objective methods to measure and predict the viability and outcome of donated organs.
4) To develop an integrated network of academic clinicians and scientists in Europe that, in collaboration with SMEs and ESOT, will develop and implement new medical therapies and devices in organ transplantation.