Growing human organs in animals

[Catherine]

It is still early in the research, so human organs cannot be made to order, but work is being done in that area.
The article is technical, but interesting.

http://news.google.ca/news/url?sr=1&ct2=...t=2&at=dt0



I think some researchers see the possibility of growing transplantable organs in pigs. They would use a persons own cells so there would be no problem of rejection. It sounds like a dream doesn't it. You need a new part you just grow it.

There are a lot of ethical issues that need to be considered. There would be a lot of animals used in the research and of course the pig that just grew a new organ is going to be sacrificed when you get the organ.

That doesn't even touch the issues of human animal hybrids. Do we really want to go there. We are not doing well coping with "normal" animals, how will we sort things out when we have created animals that are clearly part human.

I would never want to see all avenues of this research closed. Stem cells seem to be the hope for future medical treatments.
Not all uses of stem cells are wrong, nor are they all right. Some areas of research are problematic. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should. Also I think we need to ask ourselves about the ethics of how some research is done.

There are probably ways organs can be grown in the lab from stem cells. Why would we want to grow organs in pigs?

[LPC]

Very good post, Catherine. I agree with what you have written.

Put simply, what has given us the right to use animals as disposables, used to grow our organs and then be sacrificed? We just don't have that right.

Even if we look at this from a narrower ethical viewpoint than ours, there are serious problems. If the pig is part human - growing in the future perhaps not just one but maybe several human organs - then even those who have the warped belief that "humans are superior" will begin to wonder at what point an animal has the right not to be "used". When the percentage is 5%, 10%, 15%? What is the limit for these people?

I'm not a scientist, but I read somewhere that scientists do a lot of stem cell research (including for cancer) in the laboratory without the need for animal hosts. See, for example:
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/features/new-ste...imal-cells
and
https://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/85/8503cover1a.html

There are also possible hidden dangers in the "human stem cells in a pig" idea, apart from the ethical objections. It is quite possible that such organs, "farmed" in a "disposable" pig, might result in some DNA intermingling imperceptably, perhaps at first without consequence but over generations of repeated procedures resulting in a hybrid, maybe even with malformations.

[Tobi]

We are not right to use any other Being to serve our own ends to the detriment of their wholesomeness, and their lives. I was just about to say I wouldn't want any body part which had been grown on an animal causing distress, and finally euthanisation. I would honestly rather pass away with palliative care, if it were a matter of life and death. If it were simply 'cosmetic' (such as the loss of an ear etc) then I would rather live with the disfigurement.

Then I thought of the little children who may be in dire situations and need organ replacements....
They are not like me.

However, growing human body parts on or in animals is the stuff of nightmares. Surely there has to be another way? I'm sure there IS another way, but animals are the first thought for scientists as using them is probably more 'cost effective'! (How cynical can I be??)

[Catherine]

Those are great articles LPC. Clearly we are on the verge of a real change in the medical field. Stem cells are going to change how  things are done.

I think we can eliminate animal testing if we ever had the will to do it. We already know it doesn't really work. Stem cells could work.

Now the issues will be how we use stem cells.

Quote:There are also possible hidden dangers in the "human stem cells in a pig" idea, apart from the ethical objections. It is quite possible that such organs, "farmed" in a "disposable" pig, might result in some DNA intermingling imperceptably, perhaps at first without consequence but over generations of repeated procedures resulting in a hybrid, maybe even with malformations.

Quote:However, growing human body parts on or in animals is the stuff of nightmares. Surely there has to be another way? I'm sure there IS another way, but animals are the first thought for scientists as using them is probably more 'cost effective'! (How cynical can I be??)

Human stem cells grown in animals or human DNA mixed with animals is a direction some scientists want to go. I think we have no idea what the long term consequences would be. Will we be doing this as a cheap source of organs? Tobi, you are not cynical, you just know the world too well. If we think it is cheaper we will try it even if it is dangerous.

Would the organs grown in animals carry some animal DNA or some factor that will get into the human genome and change it.
Are there genes that are harmless in one species that will be a real problem in another species.

What can you say about a pig that has a percentage of human DNA. How will the pig be changed. At what percentage of human DNA do you have to stop referring to it as a pig. This is a direction we probably shouldn't go.

We mix vegetables and create new hybrid species. We cross some animals and create new hybrid species. How would a pig human hybrid feel about us? Pigs are intelligent enough to think things through. This is the stuff of science fiction movies.

We can use stem cells to prevent animal suffering and help heal humans.
We don't have to use them to create more suffering and even worse problems.