If they could grow organs, would you accept one?

A Dutch television show highlighted the shortage of donor organs in the Netherlands when three patients in need of kidneys participated in a blind-date type of contest to win an organ. It turned out to be a hoax and by the time the truth was revealed at the very end of the program, it already upset a number of viewers. I still haven't seen it but I can imagine having a horrified expression on my face and the need to call up everyone I know to complain about the low we've hit with reality t.v. But the show was meant to highlight that plight of these patients and their urgent need for organs. This International Herald Tribune article provides some interesting commentary.

I agree that it is awful that people are ever in this position, begging for help. Organ donation is a huge deal and I would like to think that I would donate a kidney if a loved one was in need of it. But you can already tell by that statement that I am not exactly excited to jump into surgery for anyone unless the situation is dire.

Surgery itself is extremely dangerous and not everyone is keen to donate their body parts in life or death. In some cases int he U.S. humans aren't completely dead when their organs are harvested for donation. So apart from forcing the entire population to spill their guts whether they want to or not, why not grow the organs? If they could produce a sheep chimera with a few extra human organs, would you accept one if your life depended on it?

We've already modified plant and animal species over the last 10,000 or so years, including dogs and sheep to silkworms and bees. Corn's ancestor, teosinte, used to look more like a grass until farmers began selective breeding for larger ears with softer kernels. None of these farmers realized that they were selectively breeding for certain genes. Genetic modification, therefore, is as old as civilization itself.

Is there a huge difference between eating something that has been modified by the hands of humans and replacing body parts with human designed organs? We are already looking for a way to prolong human life beyond its natural expiration date (and isn't that the goal of medicine?) so why not apply the latest techniques to an old tradition and embrace the gifts of science?

Interesting links:
"Putting DNA to Work"- National Academy of Sciences
Check out Lee Silver's page. He has a lot to say about biotechnology

It Happened in "Jurassic Park"

It's a movie. It's just fiction. And yet how many people picked up random genetic engineering and dinosaur "facts" from this movie? Almost every non-scientist that I know outgrew his or her dinosaur obsession around the age of 12 but picked up the rest of their dinosaur trivia from the movies and mind of Michael Crichton.

But I have to give some credit to the film's creepy spin on reproduction. In recent news, an all female group of hammerhead sharks found a way to reproduce without a male counterpart:

"Researchers from the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University in Florida and Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland found no male DNA in the female baby shark, which was born in December 2001 and died shortly after birth, apparently killed by another fish. The mother was one of three female bonnetheads, a small hammerhead species, that had been captured in Florida and kept without male sharks for three years in the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha."- New York Times

This immediately brought to mind a particular scene from the film, reproduced below:

DR. HENRY WU

You're implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will... breed?


DR. IAN MALCOLM
No, I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way.


Cue Creepy Music

I'm sure glad nothing like this happened in my all female dorm room in college.