Student Projects

Normothermic ex vivo organ perfusion represents a transformative technology that enables us to preserve living organs outside the body for multiple days—fundamentally reshaping the landscape of transplantation science. This opens a plethora of possibilities for conducting breakthrough research on improving marginal donor organs, directly benefiting the thousands of patients who are currently waiting for functional transplants. Yet one critical challenge remains: the meticulous preservation of perfusate integrity—the delicate balance required to protect the blood itself. Hemolysis, the catastrophic rupturing of red blood cells blood cells, is triggered by a complex interplay of mechanical, biochemical, and thermal stressors.

In this Master’s Thesis you will invent, design, commission, and evaluate a novel mechanism, which is able to introduce a fully variable flow resistance into a blood stream while handling the red blood cells as carefully as possible. The goal is to improve the current mechanism on our perfusion machine and therefore make a real contribution to our organ perfusion machine. On the one hand, your daily tasks will involve working with Ansys, CAD, and MATLAB/C++ to design and control your novel device. On the other hand, you will conduct experiments to quantify hemolysis and compare it state-of-the art devices found in the current literature. This Master’s Thesis is in collaboration with a start-up. We are therefore looking for a highly motivated student with exceptional skills. A very high degree of independence is a must, as well as above-average project management skills.

David Machacek, ML K31, davidm@ethz.ch

Today, over 700,000 people worldwide wait for heart transplants, yet only ~5,000 hearts become available annually. The fundamental bottleneck: hearts can survive only 4–6 hours in cold storage. Normothermic ex vivo heart perfusion transforms this by keeping hearts alive for multiple days—enabling organ assessment, improvement, and recovery. This shift could salvage 20–30% of currently discarded hearts and save thousands of lives annually. perfusionX, a newly formed start-up, is building the next-generation perfusion platform. We are now advancing to functional ex vivo heart perfusion and are seeking an exceptional master's student to lead this pioneering work. This is a rare opportunity: You will design and implement a complete perfusion protocol on our CHRONOS platform, transitioning from literature review to system design to hands-on experimentation. If your progress allows, you will conduct a live ex vivo heart perfusion using a pig heart from the slaughterhouse — thereby validating your protocol in a real-world setting. This thesis bridges academic rigor and startup entrepreneurship, directly advancing clinical translation in transplantation.

Your work will include a comprehensive literature review on heart perfusion protocols, clinical outcomes, and physiological targets. Design and optimization of a perfusion loop (cannulation strategy, oxygenation, flow control, etc.). Integration of your protocol on perfusionX’s CHRONOS system using a mock heart. Depending on your progress, you will test your protocol during a live pig heart perfusion.

David Machacek, ML K31, davidm@ethz.ch