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.

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R

ecent 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 options other than donation from deceased patients, such as xenotransplantation, or the use of human organs that were grown in animals.

Xenotransplantation experiments are being conducted in sheep, pigs, and, most recently, in nonhuman primates. In July, a group of scientists from Spain and the US claimed to have successfully created embryos containing both monkey and human cells as a preliminary step in examining the use of such human-monkey chimeras as hosts to produce human organs. According to published reports, the research was conducted in China “to avoid legal issues.

Xenotransplantation experiments rely on applying gene editing ...

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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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