Growing human organs in animals

[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.