The waiting list for donor hearts could be slashed by pioneering research from Sydney doctors that could increase the supply of the organs by up to 50 per cent.

The team from the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute and St Vincent's Hospital have discovered a way to protect hearts that have already stopped beating, in what is known as circulatory or cardiac death, and bring them back to life outside the human body.

Arjun Iyer, Registrar Cardiac Surgeon, at Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney. Credit:Janie Barrett

Peter Macdonald, the co-head of the Cardiac Transplantation Laboratory at Victor Chang, said up until now doctors had not been able to use the hearts from people who donated their organs after brain injury caused by things like car accidents because of the complex process involved in turning off life support and ensuring death has occurred. "Once you withdraw life support there is no oxygen going in to the body and all the organs are suffering," he said.

His team have developed a special solution to prevent the heart cells from dying. They then take the heart and attach it to a machine that pumps the donor's own blood into it, essentially kick-starting it to begin working again outside the body while it waits to be implanted.