Scientists want to breed pig-humans to harvest their organs

[Madword]

IsawYoshi said:

Madword said:

No you are mistaken, this *isnt* the problem they are trying to solve.

The problem is that you put another humans organ in another human, then they are still limited by time and they have to take medicine every day for their life as the body would fail the organ (the medicine is pretty hardcore as well). The idea with this is that they would grow you a body part using your own stem cells in another way (in this case a pig). So when they put it in your body your body would recognise it as your own and would not fight it.

Thats not to say they wouldnt be able to improve the drugs that keep people alive (at the moment transplant patients have a limited life time), but using a persons cells to create new body parts is the key to extending life of those whos organs fail, donations do help but its still a limiting factor.

True, organ rejection is serious business as well. But the first step here is still that we don't have enough organs to go by as it is. This is a fix for both problems, a good one at that. 

Yes no doubt, people are dying because there are not enough organs, and yes the great thing about this as you say is that it fixes both.

Is it ethical, I'm not sure, but without pushing science, they wont be able to think how to improve it in the future. I mean they have been talking about building organs in a petri dish... they were making cartilage and able to replace peoples ears... so I think initially investigations into these techniques might be a bit gross, but ultimately they will get a better and less gross method (or a method that doesnt make you feel a little queezy)... of course if I had organ failure and they had an organ available that would save my life and it was harvested with pigs, I would no doubt jump at the chance to live longer.