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My mom studied xenotransplantation in non-human primates and pigs. I worked in the veterinary resources department for a couple summers and I can confirm it can
by pazimzadeh 4y ago
My mom studied xenotransplantation in non-human primates and pigs. I worked in the veterinary resources department for a couple summers and I can confirm it can be draining. Especially since like most vet resources departments it's in the basement. The best part of the baboons' day is usually when they get to watch The Lion King for enrichment. After a few times they become so familiar with it that they are excited when their favorite scenes are coming up. It's heartbreaking, but at the same time, if we can figure out how to successfully stop organ rejection then we will most likely have cured cancer on the way, and have a much better understanding of how the immune system functions.
- emptybits 4y ago> "if we can figure out how to successfully stop organ rejection then we will most likely have cured cancer on the way" Genuinely ignorant and layperson curious here ... how are these two things connected? There are so many types of cancer that this sounds bold and almost too ... simple?
- lotu 4y agoXenotransplation is translating animal organs (which are easy to get) into humans. If you can do this then you can aggressively cut out whole organs and replace them with new cancer free organs from animals.
- dsfyu404ed 4y agoSufficiently fine control of the body's immune system such that we can prevent it from attacking a donor organ is likely to also be able to be used to make it attack cells that are reproducing out of control (i.e. cancer).
- pazimzadeh 4y agoIn order prevent rejection of the transplant, you give patients immunosuppressive drugs. But part of the immune system's function has always been to clean up any nascent tumerous or pre-cancerous cells. So you are winning on one side and losing on the other. The same co-stimulatory pathways which are getting attention for their effect in waking up the immune system against cancers (PD-L1, CTLA-4, etc) are the pathways which are being studied for the purpose of 'weakening the immune system', or inducing tolerance. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6519766/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6519766/ https://www.cancerhealth.com/article/immune-system-fight-cancer https://www.cancerhealth.com/article/immune-system-fight-can... The key will likely include the ability to induce tolerance or an immune response to a specific antigen and possibly of a specific immune subtype, so as not to derange the entire system. Also, the ability to target medications to specific regions of the body so that the entire immune system is not affected.
- jerojero 4y agoWe are just cutting resources. It's not that finding a cure to cancer is not important, of course it is, but that doesn't mean the animals need to be treated in deplorable ways. Of course, it's understandable that precautions need to be met and sometimes this means animals need to have reduced contact with other animals and be kept in particular conditions; I worked in immunology for a while so I'm familiar with it. But I believe the real reason why these animals have to suffer such torture is simply because treating them as best as we could is too expensive and no one wants to pay the cost of animal dignity. No one. So we just justify it saying it's for the greater good. I mean, it's just a utilitarian position: the potential of millions of lives being improved is worth the suffering of these animals, after all, a human life is much more valuable than an animal life under this frame of reference.
- pazimzadeh 4y agoI agree with you, and I would bet that the conditions the animals are in strongly affects the results of the organ rejection through stress.