Animals aren’t toolsheds to be raided but complex, intelligent beings. It would be better for them and healthier for humans to leave them alone and seek cures using modern science.
CONNOR BOYD: Transplant patients could routinely be given animal organs within years, according to the surgeon behind the world’s first operation to give a dying man a pig heart. Many experts see the field – known as xenotransplantation – as a solution to a global shortage of human organ donors that is expected to get worse as we live longer. Last week, a genetically modified pig heart was transplanted into a terminally ill heart failure patient and the organ appears to be functioning properly so far.
The lead surgeon who carried out the pioneering op, Dr Bartley Griffith, said it could prove a ‘real stunner’ in terms of the broader implications for the future of medicine. He added: ‘If we can be successful with this experiment there will be plentiful organs… we’ll be able to expand wellness to a much broader group of patients and they can have the hearts on demand’…
A spokesperson for the NHS said they were watching the US case with ‘interest’ and a leading expert predicted the surgeries would be mainstream within a decade. Scientists have been toying with animal-to-human organ donation for centuries, dating back to the 1800s when wounds were treated with skin grafts from frogs. Using pig heart valves is already common now, but the transplantation of an entire organ has proved too dangerous until recently…
The pig used in the the transplant had been genetically modified to knock out several genes that would have led to the organ being rejected by Mr Bennett’s body… With Mr Bennett’s porcine heart donor, three of the genes that would have caused the organ to be rejected had been deactivated using a pioneering DNA-editing technique known as CRISPR… Another gene, which would have caused the pig heart to grow drastically, was also ‘knocked out’. In addition, six human genes that would dramatically increase the chances of the heart being accepted were inserted into the pig…
Pigs have long been an attractive source of potential transplants because their organs are so similar to those of humans and — unlike primates such as chimpanzees and baboons — can be bred in large numbers. A pig heart at the time of slaughter is about the size of an adult human one…
The hurdles ahead aren’t only scientific, of course. Animal rights group Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) immediately condemned the transplant. ‘Animal-to-human transplants are unethical, dangerous, and a tremendous waste of resources that could be used to fund research that might actually help humans,’ it said in a statement. ‘Animals aren’t toolsheds to be raided but complex, intelligent beings. It would be better for them and healthier for humans to leave them alone and seek cures using modern science.’ SOURCE…
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