Posted on 01/07/2014 6:39:24 PM PST by lbryce
I am standing in a fully functioning operating theatre. A surgeon and team of specialists in green smocks are preparing to operate. But I'm not in a hospital. I am on a farm deep in the Japanese countryside. On the gurney about to undergo the knife is a six-month-old female pig.
Standing over her, scalpel in hand, is Professor Nagashima. He carefully cuts open her abdomen and pulls out her uterus. To me, it looks more like intestines - but he assures me this is what a pig's uterus looks like. Then with a syringe and a catheter, he begins to inject 40 embryos into the uterus.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
But this is just the first step.
In a lab at Tokyo University Professor Hiro Nakauchi is taking the next one, and this is even more astonishing.
Prof Nakauchi takes skin cells from an adult brown rat. He then uses gene manipulation to change these adult skin cells into what are called "iPS" cells. The amazing thing about induced pluripotent stem cells is that they have many of the same characteristics as embryonic stem cells. In other words, they can develop into any part of the animal's body.
IPS cells were first created in 2006 by Japanese medical researcher Dr Shinya Yamanaka. In 2012, he won the Nobel Prize for his discovery.
*SNIP*
But there are many potential obstacles ahead. The first is that pigs and humans are only distantly related. It is one thing to get a black pig pancreas to grow inside a white pig, quite another to get a human pancreas to do the same. Prof Nakauchi is confident it can be done. He thinks it will take at least five years, but admits it could take much longer.
The other problem is getting approval. In Japan, it is illegal to make human-animal hybrids. Prof Nakauchi is pushing for a change in the law. But if that does not happen, he may have to move his research to America.
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To those in need, the reality of just advances would be seen as a godsend. To others, it is nothing short of an abomination to God. The problem is, secret experiments involving chimerical embryos with human components are probably going on at this very moment, as I understand, that are (hopefully) killed beyond a certain point in their development.
Mankind has benefited greatly from the limited advances in this field, but certainly the point at which ethical standards begin being violated is very close at hand if not already having gone beyond.
There are areas in which these advances ethically overlap that of abortion methodologies.
Certainly a dilemma for the ages.
If the Japanese can make square watermelons, they can reproduce human organs.
Don’t think playing around in God chemistry set is a good idea.
Thing is, if this was developed only the ultra rich and other elites would reap the benefits of such advancements.
Anyone think a regular person on ACA would ever get a needed organ??? I think not
God also gave us the minds to conceive of possibilities like this. I’m not buying the God’s chemistry argument, since we’re talking about growing body parts, not people! So unless there is some other ethical basis for stopping this, I’d say it’s a good idea.
I can’t wait until some deathly ill Moslem is faced with a life and death decision . . . “Do I die of allow something that came out of a pig to extend my Life?”
They will probably accept the transplant and then blow up the doctor for touching pigs.
I’m concerned because the ability for human/animal virus crossover, especially with swine. This could be pretty hugh and series in the future.
“If the Japanese can make square watermelons, they can reproduce human organs.”
I can go either way on the subject, but will the successful byproduct of this be accessed by the regular Joe? Probably not.
Thats where I have a problem with it.
It's explicitly permitted:
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
For what purpose?
And you, be you fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
Anyone think a regular person on ACA would ever get a needed organ??? I think not
It's certainly easier to get a genetically compatible organ from a domestic pig rather than a random, barely compatible organ from a human donor. Who is going to value his kidney more, a human or a pig?
Ghost in the Shell did it over 10 years ago...
You wanna see the future or a possible future watch: Ghost in the Shell Stand Along Complex.
Warning it is a bit weird: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTc_ZJ1Hpks
Rather Morbid.
Hey, that would be a great screen name!
Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard had a heart valve replacement done with a pig’s heart valve. This was around 3 decades ago, I don’t know if that is still done. He would joke that after the operation, any time he was near a barbecue restaurant he’d get watery-eyed.
Click Here:Make Sure Your Speakers Are On:Check Volume:Click on Circle:Instant Rimshot
Certainly not the first one, the second one, or even in the first five years.
BUT, in my lifetime, and probably in yours, we have gone from cosmetic surgery being only available to the extremely wealthy to a point where the average man or woman is able to finance it on a credit card. Breast implants and nose jobs are available to the average working woman today.
Not that long ago, laser vision correction was the exclusive province of the very wealthy. Today I can put it on a credit card, and have it scheduled for next week.
15 years ago, my best friend had a liver transplant. He had a good job and an upper middle class income up until about 2 years before the surgery. At the time of the surgery he had almost no money, no job, and no prospects for the future. He still got the transplant.
The reality is that the desperate wealthy are the experimental subjects for the rest of us. The very first operations are usually much less successful than the later ones, which ARE available to the common man and woman.
If you are inferring that I change my user name to ‘Rather Morbid’ simply because I posted an article that discusses an issue that will one day affect everyone in one way or another, I must say, I am indeed offended.
BTW, forgive me being a bit of a Grammar Nazi, but he would be implying - inferring is what you did when you read his post.
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