this edition of inside story. thanks for being with us. in washington, i'm ray suarez. i'm phil torres here to talk about innovations that can change lives. we're going to explore the intersection of hardware and humanity and doing it in a unique way. this is a show about science by scientists. let's check out our team of hard core nerds. dr. shini somara, life and death in the or, one woman in desperate need of a transplant. will the donor lung arrive before it's too late?

marita davidson is a biologist specializing in ecologist and evolution. tonight, swimming with sharks and a shark robot that will one day protect these fascinating creatures. i'm phil torres, i'm an entomologist exploring spiders in the rain forests of peru. now let's do some science. ♪ >> hi guys, i'm phil torres, welcome to a very special episode of "techknow." we're getting revolutionary access to technology, a revolution story, dr. shini

somara to tell it. >> it is one of the most interesting things i've ever done in my life. changed my idea, machines replacing human bodies, essentially. take a look. >> breathing. it usually happens so naturally, most of us never ever think about it. that is, of course, until there's a problem. currently, 1600 people are on a waiting list all desperately wait bwaiting for a lung transp. which is why we're here, to understand a lung transplant team, how they rush into action when a

lung is available. and game changing technology. st. joseph's is starting the organ care system, also known as the ocs. the device allows the vital organs like the heart and lungs to stay warm and functioning generosity the human body. if approved by the fda, it could change the way donor organs are transported. dr. michael smith is the surgical director of lung transplantation at st. joseph's. >> historically what we've done is taken them out of the donor's body and put them into an ice chest. >> but on ice, fragile organs have a time limit of only six

hours. >> that period of time there's no blood flow or air getting to those lungs, that's calls keep ya. >> those lungs are deteriorating, aren't they? >> exactly. those cells don't like that. what this device has done is taken it so we can remove the lungs from the donor and put them in this device that profuses the vessels with blood and also has a ventilator circuit that actually pushes air into the lungs. the lungs are constantly oxygenating warm blood as they would in someone's body. and essentially, diminishes that ischemic time to almost nothing. >> lungs been maintained on the organ care system for almost ten hours, nearly

doubling the time they can be kept on ice. >> you are essential doubling the travel time, travel is a nonfactor. >> katherine vosh is a joseph's. it is her responsibility to monitor lungs in the device. every second of the way from the donor hospital to the operating room at st. joseph's. >> this is the monitor which we take on the runs with you. and this is brains behind the whole machine. we're able to set how much blood flow we want to have go to the lungs or you how much volume we want the lungs to receive while they're on the machine. so the lungs are in flight, someone will actually sit on this, which is required. >> on this device you can monitor function so you know when you transplant those lungs that those are good lungs.

>> the transplant surgical team at st. joseph's is on call 24-7. when a donor is made available they rush into action, to retrieve the organs that are needed. patients like victoria bloo bloomfeld, a 69-year-old. >> we were gorgeous. >> brian and victoria have been married for 47 years. together they raised three children. they kept active lives, up to three years ago when vict yah was diagnosed with a chronic and ultimately fatal lung disease. >> my husband calls it resignation. to me it was acceptance that i knew how i was going to die. and you can either give up and say, boy, this is it, or you can

take the last few years you think, and work with that and do the best you can. so that's what i've been doing, actually. >> over the past few years, vict victoria has been tackling things on her bucket list. including learning how to work with glass. butter recently, her condition has deteriorated. she constantly needs splefnl oxygen. they -- supplemental oxygen. she contacted st. joseph's to see if she would be able to get a lung transplant. >> this is pulmonary phi borrows is. >> the medical director of the transplant team.

which indeed determined that victoria was a prime candidate for a lung transplant. >> how soon does victoria need new lungs? >> victoria needs in the next few most a new set of lungs, before she will have an exacerbation, the mortality of that complication is extremely high. >> psychologically are you ready for this transplant? >> i'm ready for it. i don't have any option. there is no option. i either get transplant or i just deteriorate. >> victoria decided to enroll in the ocs study. the trial is randomized. meaning this if a donor match is found, a card will be picked to determine whether the lungs will be delivered on ice or on the new system. the goal: to compare post surgery outcomes for patients who receive their lungs with the

ocs system and those who don't. just left victoria's house. meantly, she's got -- mentally she's got a great attitude to life, great lope, wants the phone to ring for her. and there may be another reason to hope that victoria receives the lungs on the ocs system. early results from the study says the results are reduced, called primary graft dysfunction or pgd. >> people who have had severe episodes of pgd don't live as long after the transplant when you look months or years past the are transplant. >> it would seem that victoria's case would prefer the ocs system just because it's a much more fragile case. >> yes, but we don't have control over which patients are going to get randomized. so it is going to be either one.

we will know when her time comes if she gets randomized or not. >> now the waiting game for victoria and her family. about the procedure and do you have any worries? >> sometimes you get these thoughts, oh my god, of course they go through your mind. night. in the morning you're just good to go. so i hope they call me in the morning. that's my best time. >> coming up next: we witness a lung transplant team in action. and victoria finds out if she gets her so-called lungs in a botch. >> every saturday join us for exclusive, revealing, and surprising talks with the most interesting people of our time. >> i became beautiful when i became a feminist >> gloria steinem >> sexuality is about cooperation, not domination...

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>> hi guys, welcome back to"tec" now shini, before the break we were introduced to victoria, a spirited woman on the donor list. >> i found victoria, a great grandmother, with a great joy for life, but she was in a critical condition where she desperately needed lungs. it was literally life or death. take a look at what happens next. victoria bloom felt desperately needs a lung transplant. >> she has got probably less than a year to le live. >> but a new device could mean the difference between life and death. >> you can see patients literally die on the waiting

list of. >> is that feasible? >> it could be, keeping moring patients on the waiting list. >> it has the capability of improving the functionality of the organs. lungs in a box: will she get them? >> i'm too young to be put out to pasture. glus got off the plane and jumped on a cab. vicky is waiting for her double lung transplant. and they are arriving in ocs mches! cs machines! >> for those three hours i really -- i didn't want to think about it.

♪ ♪ >> you know, you want to receive the the call, but yet, on the other hand, you're scared to receive the call. in the last couple of weeks, i was -- >> i remember, just -- >> now it's a little apprehension. you know, you do realize it's a big operation. >> now, the incision will come from underneath one armpit and go underneath the breasts and across the sternum and meet the other breast and arm pip. some

of these chest incisions will stay with you for quite some time. that's why the epidural is there. we'll see you inside, okay? >> he's really cute. [ laughter ] >> i can't -- >> after a final consultation with dr. smith, victoria is wheeled into surgery. >> at this point how are you feeling? >> um, feeling pretty good. i'm excited to get this lung transplant done for this patient. who's been waiting on, on the donor side it's usually pretty solemn. but on this side it's pretty exciting. >> when victoria is prepped for surgery, there's one more critical player to arrive. >> we're waiting for the organs

to come up in the organ care system and it's quite nerve wracking. are those the lungs? >> yes, those are the lungs. >> these are the lungs, you can actually hear them "breathing," sound like they're breathing on their own. although mechanical, it is so incredible to be standing next to them. while the team members prepare to remove the lungs from the organ care system, victoria's surgeons extract one of her diseased lungs.

>> the left lung is out. >> can you see why we're saying, this very small ,. >> here is one of the lungs. >> there's no mistaking victoria's diseased lungs with the healthy donor lungs. >> completely different. these are deflated. that accounts for some of the difference but it is very different. the way to think about this lung, it's more stiff. when a sponge dries up, it's more stiff and more firm. that's way this lung is, more firm. but this lung is much softer. >> they replace victoria's fibrotic lungs with the donor

lungs, one at a time. and then, the moment of truth. that's a lung inflated. >> and the right is inflated as well. >> the lungs are both fully inflated and victoria takes her first breath. >> how do you think it went overall? >> i think it went great overall. >> after four hours of surgery, victoria is breathing on her own with a new pair of lungs. >> it can change for her life. >> before there was no life. just whatever was left. >> 47 years of marriage, and now, i believe, many more years.

>> yes, we are sure hoping so. >> honestly for me, that was the most humbling experience i've ever had, watching lungs being extracted from vicky's body and being replaced. you know the donor the surge the hospital the ocs machine all came together at that perfect time. and now, vicky has a brand-new chance at life. it's truly miraculous. it's cutting edge technology, isn't it? >> very much so. if this device is as efficient and efficacious as we think it will be then it can be a game-changer in lung transplantation. >> so my question to you is why aren't there enough lungs currently on the donor list? >> the ludges on

-- the lungs on the donor list, 80% of them are not satisfactory for lung transplantation. there may be a stage where you can recondition lungs, actually recondition them by blasting them with antibuy anti biotics. >> i think for me seeing a hearts beating on a machine, kind of likes though lungs beating on a machine, i can't believe that that is our reality now. it seems absolutely science fiction. that they could treat these things outside of our body, seeing lungs are alive going from one human to another. >> they are actually starting chemical trials late this year on a liver in a box.

so they're starting to use this technology on all different kinds of organs. >> it affects us as humans, in a real way. coming up after the break, marita, you did a story on sharks and robots. >> i got to go to catalina >> the debate that divides america, unites the critics, a reason to watch al jazeera america the standout television event borderland, is gritty honesty. >> a lot of people don't have a clue what goes on down here, the only way to find out, is to see it yourselves. >> taking viewers beyond the debate. >> don't miss al jazeera america's critically acclaimed series borderland on al jazeera america also available on demand r

on al jazeera america ♪ ♪ >> hey guys, welcome back to "techknow." i'm phil torres and i'm here with dr. shini somara and marita davidson. marita, you went through a bit of a swim. >> i got to are swim with researchers from

cal state shark lab, measuring all sorts of environmental conditions. let's take a look at it. this is catalina island. 27 miles off the coast of los angeles. a place known for its beauty both above and below the ocean that surrounds it. most of the fish that call these waters home go relatively unnoticed. but one species is impossible to miss. them. if you were from cal state's shark lab, it's not a bad place to set up shop. >> this is going to change how we study sharks in the ocean. >> chris lowe, getting to know him and his work is getting your feet wet. obviously, here a day at the office requires a different attire. and it also provides a different

view of the world. it takes only a few moments underwater to understand chris lowe's passion for the ocean. and for the sharks he studies. >> what is it about sharks that interests you from a scientific perspective? >> they're a canary in a coal mine for the ocean. they tell us how healthy the oceans are. as a diver you jump in the water and you want the sharks to come to you, and sometimes they do and most times they don't. so that's always been the tricky part, how do we find the way to study them? >> the answer, he believes, is this. this is a robot that we've been talking about and chris clark you are the man behind this. tell me about this. >> we've got this autonomous underwater vehicle, auv. we want to collect data, data about sharks. once it dives down it uses a couple of different

sensors, a compass. >> what do they do? >> it attaches a tag to the sharks, it listens to the tags attached to the sharks. and it will autonomously follow around, the sharks as they move. these are dummy plugs and these are attached to what we called hide grow-phones. listening for acoustic tags that we will attach to a fish or shark and every two seconds they will just ping, ping. [ ping, ping, ping ] >> these have been used for about a decade now. they are used to measure water and light and salinity and color chlorophyll. we can build a 3d map around the animal that is tracking and it

knows exactly where the animal is in that 3d space as it's moving. our goal is to be able to say when the animal suddenly dogs something different, is there some aspect of its environment that is causing it to do that? >> well, of course everything is easier said than done. so that's why the group comes to catalina, testing. >> we're hiding the transmitter on the sea floor and get the robot out to find it, to get as accurate a positioning as possible. >> the two chris kno chrises know that they have hit the target when it's circling. and guess when what, it's circling now. >> i envision a day, when we can measure aspects of behavior that we have never been able to measure before.

and we're going to build a database of the ocean that's scale. this is going to change our view. >> if i've learned anything today, it's that science and innovation can come in diverse forms, from machines and sharks, we'll see you next week on "techknow." >> dive deep into these stories and go behind the scenes to aljazeera.com/"techknow." follow our contributors on google, facebook, twitter and more. >> on techknow... >> these are some of the amazing spider goats >> small creatures, big impact >> how strong is it? >> almost as strong as steel >> inspiring discoveries changing lives >> this could go in a human body... >> right >> this is for an achilles tendon >> techknow every saturday

go where science meets humanity >> this is some of the best driving i've ever done, even though i can't see techknow >> we're here in the vortex >> only on al jazeera america . >> this is al jazeera america live on new york city. i'm richelle carey with a look at today's top stories. iraqis head to the polls today, the first election since the u.s. drops left the country. and the botched execution, oklahoma's governor demanding investigation into the three-drug lethal injection. and donald sterling forced to sell the l.a.