Following the discussion at the end of
our Wednesday class about the possibility of animal organ transplant,
I decided to do some research on the subject. At first I was
sceptical about these practices, but soon later realized that their
may be a case for these procedures.
Pig organ transplants – mainly of
hearts, livers, and kidneys – have been envisaged for some years.
According to the U.K. newspaper The
Independent, in the article “Pig-to-human tissue transplants
'imminent'” of 2003, in the mid nineteen-nineties, a small
biotechnology company called Imutran, based in Cambridge, England,
pioneered the transplantation of a pig's heart into a monkey. This
achievement, although not proven to be fully safe for humans,
demonstrated for the first time that Xenotransplantation was
possible.
Xenotransplantation, is a procedure by
which a transplant of one specie's organ into another is possible.
Therefore a pig transplant would fall in this category.
What makes today these procedures
possible is the breeding of a modified pig. The “GAL-knockout” is
the name given to a genetically modified pig which has had its
Galactose sugars removed. This change has allowed the human body to
easily accept the transplanted body part without activating rejection
by the immune system.
A remaining concern was the
transmission of pig viruses, such as the swine-flu, but a clinical
trial involving 200 subjects did not give any evidence of
transmission of any such virus.
I have some reservations about the
ethical basis of this form of treatment of animals, however, since
pigs are already used in the food supply, the transplant would not
seem to be a further issue.
Is the future in Xenotransplantation or
is it in the transplantation of synthetic body tissues?
That is an interesting question. I imagine research will go in both directions. Right now we already use foreign materials to repair (or "enhance") human bodies, and we use pig parts (e.g. heart valves) as well.
ReplyDeleteOne wonders, if we get an unlimited supply of organs, tissues, etc., if we'd be able to continually repair and just keep going? Would that be good?
I would argue that the future of medicine lies in synthetic body tissues as opposed to continuously cycling organic body parts, pig or otherwise. Firstly, it opens a larger domain for research and scientific pursuit. It would (in my perfect sci-fi world) also provide for more durable solutions to the original issue.
ReplyDeleteMy mother is deaf. She's spent her entire life with gadgets in her ears, considered putting some right into her head. There are people with robotic arms controlled by redirected nervous endings, attached right to the flesh and body.
But what happens when these sciences are perfected? When a robotic arm is more versatile and practical than a human arm? It is not robotic technologies that will know real change, it will be we, people!
You may be right. For a novel that explores this horizon in a pretty funny, offbeat way, see Machine Man by Max Barry. Quick read.
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