8 ms·

Humanised kidneys grown inside pigs for the first time

105 points by c420 3y ago

bobobob420 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  I personally tend to agree but please don't post unsubstantive/fulminating comments to HN. It just makes for bad threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - twodave 3y ago
    I actually wanted to reply, but can't, so I'll thread here... > [ things lots of people do ] is disgusting, because [ my personal value system ]. I'm hoping by framing the quote this way it'll help demonstrate how statements like this promote a dualistic discussion. The way this was worded really says, "Fight me on this unpopular opinion! Also, I'm judging you if you disagree." Maybe a better wording that still retains its salience, without so much preachiness: > I am disgusted when I see [ things lots of people do ] happening, because [ my personal value system ]. This is communicating the same essential message (that you're disgusted by what you're seeing), but it leads the reader to not fight you, but ask, "I wonder why he feels so strongly about this?" There is a rich diversity of viewpoints on this site, and that's an asset for us. It allows us to discover WHY people think what they think.
baliex 3y ago
Controversy ahead, I'm open to discussion. This is obvious and egregious animal abuse. What is it that puts our wants above those pigs' right to a peaceful life without growing others' (another species'!) organs in their bodies. Presumably to be slaughtered once our organs have developed enough to be harvested? What gives us the right to even attempt that procedure on another living being?
- tonyedgecombe 3y ago
  If you are concerned about animal welfare I suspect there are much worse things going on in the dairy and meat industries.
  - nilespotter 3y ago
    Don't forget the absolute horror of factory egg farming
  - echelon_musk 3y ago
    This feels like what aboutism. The parent argument is no less valid just because other horrors occur. I wonder If you knew they were already vegan - would you have provided the same reply.
    - ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
      Saving lives is way more justifiable than filling bellies.
      - ChatGTP 3y ago
        That's if we continue to believe human lives are more important than pig lives. I personally think this view is problematic and it's why we're ruining the environment. We have a false sense of importance which shouldn't exist and it might send us extinct if we're not careful.' For example, give me one single reason why we think we have the right to pollute the environment, fill the water ways with tyre dust, chop down the amazon, factory farm? It's a lack of respect for other things which is the issue.
        ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
        Human lives are more important.
        ChatGTP 3y ago
WirelessGigabit 3y ago
Given the amount of people needing organs, and dying because of no availability, this is great.
- giarc 3y ago
  There are enough kidneys, there are not enough donors. I suspect we could get closer to balance if we changed to opt-out or presumed consent.
  - rich_sasha 3y ago
    UK is now opt out, and yet still at a shortage. According to a doctor friend, most people who die simply aren't suitable donors. Their old knackered organs, ravaged by whatever disease killed their owner, are no use.
  - xwdv 3y ago
    People have no desire to donate organs only to have them go to people they might not like or wish were dead. Why give up a kidney to some baby boomer whose generation ravaged the Earth and left their children so poor? We must grow organs from scratch.
  - hawk_ 3y ago
    As cars get automated, there will be fewer kidneys (and other organs) available despite opt out.
    - XorNot 3y ago
      Motorcyclists are still your core optimal donation demographic though.
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    There are many issues with organs from people killed in accidents. Availability, randomness of occurrence, suitability, immunity. To be able to have a 'manufactured' supply seems much better, not least or especially if it is ultimately possible to remove all immunity problems. The current system, whether opt-in or opt-out, is because we simply don't know how to do better. On demand grown organs using the recipient's own DNA seems to be the holy grail. I reckon we'll get there someday.
c420 3y ago
Medical Student: But look at what has been done with hearts and kidneys... Dr. Frederick Fronkenstein: Hearts and kidneys are Tinker Toys! I am talking about the central nervous system! — Dr. Frederick Fronkenstein, Young Frankenstein
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
bertil 3y ago
One issue with chimeras (the article doesn’t mention) is that they open the door to a new philosophical question about the zoonotic transmission risk. Human-animal barriers are hard to pass for infections (bacteria or virus) because there’s very little material shared between organisms: occasional spittle of saliva, maybe blood drops during butchering, but not much. Therefore, there’s hardly ever an opportunity to mutate in an environment that would select for human compatibility. In a chimera, there’s a life-long tissue-sized opportunity. Even for one individual, hat’s enormous. If pigs routinely carry a pathogen to which they are immune or that has no apparent symptoms, we wouldn’t know. We know it happens, but we have no more way of knowing than Christopher Columbus did. If any pathogen proves easily transmittable but deadly to humans, it’s over. Every bridging case tells us such infections are likely, numerous even. Chimeras are the perfect ground to mutate those until it’s too late — not for the individual recipient, but potentially for the entire human population. This is a very easy-to-imagine and, overall, quite likely extinction event. We don’t know what pigs have that could be it. We could and do raise chimeras in total isolation, hoping they would not catch anything like that. Still, every step of the process, from the circumstances of the pigs’ birth to where the food comes from, is an opportunity for such contamination. Philosophically, we know, but we don‘t know: we know what it would look like, so if nasty things happen, we would understand; however, we have no sure way to prevent it until it happens. The closest equivalent in fiction would be the opening chapter of _The Last Of Us_ (spoilers): tell every epidemiologist this is it, set yourself on fire, and beg a foreign country to immediately nuke your country out of existence, hoping that will be enough. I find that new conception of risk interesting, but have been pondering that scenario for decades (one of my professors was the first to suggest that path). I realize that it sounds a lot grimmer than vegans and Muslim people finding the practice “revolting” without nearly as dark a shadow over the practice.
- Natsu 3y ago
  I mean, depending on what you believe about certain humanized mice studies, this may have already lead to a highly human-adapted pathogen appearing out of seemingly nowhere.
- michaelbarton 3y ago
  Great comment and I would add that this has already happened: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/05/04/1051725/xenotransplant-patient-died-received-heart-infected-with-pig-virus/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/05/04/1051725/xenotran...
e12e 3y ago
> Oryx and Crake is a 2003 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. She has described the novel as speculative fiction and adventure romance, rather than pure science fiction, because it does not deal with things "we can't yet do or begin to do" - Wikipedia

105 points by c420 3y ago

bobobob420 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
I personally tend to agree but please don't post unsubstantive/fulminating comments to HN. It just makes for bad threads. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- twodave 3y ago
  I actually wanted to reply, but can't, so I'll thread here... > [ things lots of people do ] is disgusting, because [ my personal value system ]. I'm hoping by framing the quote this way it'll help demonstrate how statements like this promote a dualistic discussion. The way this was worded really says, "Fight me on this unpopular opinion! Also, I'm judging you if you disagree." Maybe a better wording that still retains its salience, without so much preachiness: > I am disgusted when I see [ things lots of people do ] happening, because [ my personal value system ]. This is communicating the same essential message (that you're disgusted by what you're seeing), but it leads the reader to not fight you, but ask, "I wonder why he feels so strongly about this?" There is a rich diversity of viewpoints on this site, and that's an asset for us. It allows us to discover WHY people think what they think.

baliex 3y ago

Controversy ahead, I'm open to discussion. This is obvious and egregious animal abuse. What is it that puts our wants above those pigs' right to a peaceful life without growing others' (another species'!) organs in their bodies. Presumably to be slaughtered once our organs have developed enough to be harvested? What gives us the right to even attempt that procedure on another living being?

tonyedgecombe 3y ago
If you are concerned about animal welfare I suspect there are much worse things going on in the dairy and meat industries.
- nilespotter 3y ago
  Don't forget the absolute horror of factory egg farming
- echelon_musk 3y ago
  This feels like what aboutism. The parent argument is no less valid just because other horrors occur. I wonder If you knew they were already vegan - would you have provided the same reply.
  - ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
    Saving lives is way more justifiable than filling bellies.
    - ChatGTP 3y ago
      That's if we continue to believe human lives are more important than pig lives. I personally think this view is problematic and it's why we're ruining the environment. We have a false sense of importance which shouldn't exist and it might send us extinct if we're not careful.' For example, give me one single reason why we think we have the right to pollute the environment, fill the water ways with tyre dust, chop down the amazon, factory farm? It's a lack of respect for other things which is the issue.
      - ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
        Human lives are more important.
        ChatGTP 3y ago

WirelessGigabit 3y ago

Given the amount of people needing organs, and dying because of no availability, this is great.

giarc 3y ago
There are enough kidneys, there are not enough donors. I suspect we could get closer to balance if we changed to opt-out or presumed consent.
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  UK is now opt out, and yet still at a shortage. According to a doctor friend, most people who die simply aren't suitable donors. Their old knackered organs, ravaged by whatever disease killed their owner, are no use.
- xwdv 3y ago
  People have no desire to donate organs only to have them go to people they might not like or wish were dead. Why give up a kidney to some baby boomer whose generation ravaged the Earth and left their children so poor? We must grow organs from scratch.
- hawk_ 3y ago
  As cars get automated, there will be fewer kidneys (and other organs) available despite opt out.
  - XorNot 3y ago
    Motorcyclists are still your core optimal donation demographic though.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  There are many issues with organs from people killed in accidents. Availability, randomness of occurrence, suitability, immunity. To be able to have a 'manufactured' supply seems much better, not least or especially if it is ultimately possible to remove all immunity problems. The current system, whether opt-in or opt-out, is because we simply don't know how to do better. On demand grown organs using the recipient's own DNA seems to be the holy grail. I reckon we'll get there someday.

c420 3y ago

Medical Student: But look at what has been done with hearts and kidneys... Dr. Frederick Fronkenstein: Hearts and kidneys are Tinker Toys! I am talking about the central nervous system! — Dr. Frederick Fronkenstein, Young Frankenstein

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

bertil 3y ago

One issue with chimeras (the article doesn’t mention) is that they open the door to a new philosophical question about the zoonotic transmission risk. Human-animal barriers are hard to pass for infections (bacteria or virus) because there’s very little material shared between organisms: occasional spittle of saliva, maybe blood drops during butchering, but not much. Therefore, there’s hardly ever an opportunity to mutate in an environment that would select for human compatibility. In a chimera, there’s a life-long tissue-sized opportunity. Even for one individual, hat’s enormous. If pigs routinely carry a pathogen to which they are immune or that has no apparent symptoms, we wouldn’t know. We know it happens, but we have no more way of knowing than Christopher Columbus did. If any pathogen proves easily transmittable but deadly to humans, it’s over. Every bridging case tells us such infections are likely, numerous even. Chimeras are the perfect ground to mutate those until it’s too late — not for the individual recipient, but potentially for the entire human population. This is a very easy-to-imagine and, overall, quite likely extinction event. We don’t know what pigs have that could be it. We could and do raise chimeras in total isolation, hoping they would not catch anything like that. Still, every step of the process, from the circumstances of the pigs’ birth to where the food comes from, is an opportunity for such contamination. Philosophically, we know, but we don‘t know: we know what it would look like, so if nasty things happen, we would understand; however, we have no sure way to prevent it until it happens. The closest equivalent in fiction would be the opening chapter of _The Last Of Us_ (spoilers): tell every epidemiologist this is it, set yourself on fire, and beg a foreign country to immediately nuke your country out of existence, hoping that will be enough. I find that new conception of risk interesting, but have been pondering that scenario for decades (one of my professors was the first to suggest that path). I realize that it sounds a lot grimmer than vegans and Muslim people finding the practice “revolting” without nearly as dark a shadow over the practice.

Natsu 3y ago
I mean, depending on what you believe about certain humanized mice studies, this may have already lead to a highly human-adapted pathogen appearing out of seemingly nowhere.
michaelbarton 3y ago
Great comment and I would add that this has already happened: https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/05/04/1051725/xenotransplant-patient-died-received-heart-infected-with-pig-virus/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/05/04/1051725/xenotran...

e12e 3y ago

> Oryx and Crake is a 2003 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. She has described the novel as speculative fiction and adventure romance, rather than pure science fiction, because it does not deal with things "we can't yet do or begin to do" - Wikipedia