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The quest to create animals with human organs
- reasonattlm 10y agoThere are several competing lines of technology: 1) humanized organs in animals such as pigs. 2) decellularization of animal organs, such as from pigs, followed by replacement with the patient's cells. 3) outright creation of organs from scratch, from a patient's cells (e.g. https://www.neworgan.org https://www.neworgan.org ) 4) repair of existing organs in situ. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out; #1 and #2 are only in the running instead of #3 because no-one yet has a good solution for creating the blood vessel networks needed for full size tissue engineering. At the moment only organoids or other thin tissues (e.g. trachea, esophageal lining) can be constructed reliably. #3 is only a goal to the extent that #4 isn't figured out: how to spur regeneration and change cell behavior for the tissues that exist.
- rokosbasilisk 10y agoIsnt this counter productive to the antibiotic resistance increase ? Alot of animals are given antibiotics, if they had actual human organs wouldnt that make things like swine flu more common and bacterial outbreaks worse?
- maxerickson 10y agoSwine flu is a virus and doesn't have anything much to do with antibiotics. It certainly seems possible that chimeras would create new opportunities for diseases to cross species.
- Terr_ 10y agoI'd definitely worry about creating any kind of "human training ground" for pathogens. If our immune mechanics are in animals, those animals need to be treated like people when it comes to herd-immunity.
- hobarrera 10y agoI'm constantly amazed by the complete lack of ethics in a lot of scientific research. I do admit we all benefit from it, but actually using sentient beings as organ-farms is so far from morally acceptable, I'm amazed how people are still willing to work on something like this.
- nn3 10y agoWhat's the difference to using an animal's hide for leather or eating a steak?
- hobarrera 10y agoGenerally, none, that's why so many activist are constantly trying to raise awareness for the conditions (basically slavery & torture) that animals of both industries suffer their entire lives in order for someone else to have a nice treat.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoNothing like that was endorsed by the OP. In fact all the governing bodies were describes as being very careful that this should never happen.