Growing Our Own Spare Ribs?

Pig to human organ transplants to replace failing human organs could be closer on the horizon than once thought. Two groups of scientists have worked on and produced genetically engineered, cloned pigs that have organs and tissues suitable for human transplantations (xenotransplantation).

These days, perhaps more than ever, countless people each year die while waiting on long organ transplant lists, so the huge advantage of being able to use cloned pigs is immediately apparent. Furthermore, pigs have relatively similair sized organs to humans. In fact, for the past ten years or so pig heart valves have been used in heart surgery.

Xenotransplantation is no miracle cure. Pig tissues and organs are recognized by the hosts’ immune system (through sugars on the cell surface) and aggressively rejected. Pig organs carry a gene known as α-1,3-galactosyltransferase. A major hurdle in this discovery is therefore overcoming the problem of rejection. This was done by genetically engineering pigs that do not possess α-1,3-galactosyltransferase, which attaches sugars to the surface of porcine cells.

There is another concern that porcine viruses such as porcine endogenous retrovirus could transfer to human populations through xenotransplantations, but ongoing studies are addressing this problem. There are a number of moral issues raised concerning xenotransplantation that need to be addressed, however overall, human-pig transplants have the potential for groundbreaking advances in biomedical sciences and may help thousands of people.


Author: Phil Kowalski

Student No.: 41204119

References:
Primary:
http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/content/full/76/11/5548
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/17596/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1740316.stm
Others:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7329/67
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/tech/InnovationRepublish_1189959.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2210306.stmhttp://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/17596/page2/