Opinion: Develop Organoids, Not Chimeras, for Transplantation

Scientists are devising human-animal hybrids for harvesting human organs, but lab-derived mini-organs are a less ethically fraught solution to meeting the need for transplantation.

| 4 min read
xenotransplantation organ transplant donor shortage organoid stem cell chimera ethics bioethics

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Recent studies have shown that even though about 50 percent of adults in the United States have registered as organ donors, more than 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for a transplant and many will die waiting. The increasing scarcity of human organ donors has driven research scientists to examine other options, such as xenotransplantation, to generate essential human transplantable organs.

Xenotransplantation experiments, generating human organs in animals for transplantation, are being conducted in sheep, pigs, and, recently, in nonhuman primates. Last month, a group of scientists from Spain and the US began to examine the use of monkeys as animal hosts to produce human organs. According to the published reports, the research was conducted in China “to avoid legal issues.” Xenotranplantation experiments rely on applying gene editing and stem cell biology technologies to address the potential of tissue rejection by the recipient’s immune ...

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Meet the Author

  • John Loike

    John D. Loike

    John Loike serves as the interim director of bioethics at New York Medical College and as a professor of biology at Touro University. His biomedical research focuses on how human white blood cells combat infections and cancer.
  • Robert Pollack

    This person does not yet have a bio.
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