Humanized Kidneys Grown Inside Pigs For the First Time 34
Scientists have grown humanized kidneys in pigs, raising the prospect of human organs being grown inside animals. The Guardian reports: The research involved creating human-pig chimeric embryos containing a combination of human and pig cells. When transferred into surrogate pig mothers, the developing embryos were shown to have kidneys that contained mostly human cells, marking the first time that scientists have grown a solid humanized organ inside another animal. The kidneys were not entirely human as they included vasculature and nerves made mostly from pig cells, meaning they could not be used for transplantation in their current form. It is not clear whether the challenge of making a wholly human organ would be achievable with current genetic engineering techniques.
Aside from the kidneys, the embryos were dominated by pig cells, with very few human cells in the brain or central nervous system. The potential for a humanized brain is a serious ethical concern for research involving hybrid embryos and one of the reasons for tight legal restrictions on research in many countries. [...] After being cultivated in the lab, the chimeric embryos were transferred to 13 surrogate sows. After either 25 or 28 days, the gestation was terminated and embryos were extracted and assessed. The embryos had structurally normal kidneys for their stage of development, showing the tubules that would eventually connect the kidney to the bladder, and were composed of 50-60% human cells. Very human neural cells were found in the brain and spinal cord. The research has been published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Aside from the kidneys, the embryos were dominated by pig cells, with very few human cells in the brain or central nervous system. The potential for a humanized brain is a serious ethical concern for research involving hybrid embryos and one of the reasons for tight legal restrictions on research in many countries. [...] After being cultivated in the lab, the chimeric embryos were transferred to 13 surrogate sows. After either 25 or 28 days, the gestation was terminated and embryos were extracted and assessed. The embryos had structurally normal kidneys for their stage of development, showing the tubules that would eventually connect the kidney to the bladder, and were composed of 50-60% human cells. Very human neural cells were found in the brain and spinal cord. The research has been published in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Orcs? (Score:5, Funny)
Do you want orcs? Because this is how you get orcs.
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Seriously stem cells have been proven to migrate.
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
So I wouldn't be surprised if organ stem cells could migrate to people's brains too.
Bone marrow cell migration to brain does happen for mice: https://faculty.washington.edu... [washington.edu]
https://web.archive.org/web/20... [archive.org]
Whether this would cause significant changes and those changes are "negative" are different questions.
I personally wouldn't rule out the possibly of changes given what I know. Things tend to be rather messier in the bio wo
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Do you want orcs?
Yes, of course. Don't you?
The way things are going we're going to need disposable workers to send to the surface to tend farms.
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Planet of the Pigs....
Re: Orcs? (Score:4, Funny)
Don't you mean porcs?
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Porcs
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Nah,
this is how you make Bebop and Rocksteady from the teenage mutant ninja turtles series.
Bebop was supposed to be a human / warthog (just another form of a pig I think :p ) mutant. ;)
Is It Cannabilism? (Score:2)
If I have them with some gravy?
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I don't know whether that should be modded funny or insightful. The category doesn't seem to have sharp edges when this technology shows its face. Or the other one, where they "humanize" a pig by modding it so that it's more similar to human, to avoid transplant rejection.
OTOH, for now this stuff would be too expensive to just eat.
IANAMD but there might be problems (Score:2)
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Also how long do pigs live typically? Given that, what would the organ lifespan likely be in a human?
Do pigs usually die from kidney failure?
The kidneys themselves might be good for a lot longer than a pig usually needs them. Something else probably "wears out" first.
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The right caliber solution usually comes along, gives it a shot, and the pig's mind, umm, expands. Admittedly, over the landscape, so it's not a replacement for yoga.
Re:IANAMD but there might be problems (Score:4)
I need the solution soon (in relative terms).
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Yes. Even human transplant recipients tend to need to be on immune suppressants for the rest of their life, and this is one step worse. But there's a huge shortage of "histo-compatible" organs, and if this can be made to work, some people will live longer. A clearly better choice would be growing the appropriate organ from the person's own stem cells (or created stem cells..which we often can do), but we can't do that yet. And it may always be too slow and expensive to be a viable option.
Lithium damage (Score:5, Informative)
My kidneys were damaged from lithium after a misdiagnosis of bipolar. I probably have 10-15 years before I'll need dialysis. If I understand the info correctly, I'll have 5-10 more years before I'll need a transplant.
They'd best damned get this right and get it right fast enough for me, but research of this kind is slow and unpredictable. Still, I'm in something of a rush here, relatively speaking.
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Because that's better than a person dying so that I can live. Besides which, as intelligent as pigs are (and some breeds are smarter than dogs), they can't finish the novel I'm writing. I can therefore contribute moderately good art to society (I wouldn't consider my tech skills as contributing meaningfully), the pig - being a pig - is limited to contributing bacon and possibly kidneys.
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We are starting to get into some interesting realms that were previously sci-fi, like being able to enjoy both new kidneys and a bacon sandwich from the same animal.
I was hoping that COIVD might speed up some of this medical research. We needed vaccines fast, and now we need a cure for Long COVID fast too.
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Morphine substitutes for pain relief are legal for doctors to administer. Morphine itself might be, also. Certainly, a doctor gave me a shot of one or the other to lower my blood pressure one time.
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BACON
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Well, how about when you are about to kill the pig to get the bacon, you also grab the kidney?
So it does not have to die just to have the kidney implanted into a human.
They are already dieing to feed the humans, it's just that this way there are more uses for them, instead of just feeding.
Or is a pig with kidneys based on human dna / cells, and the rest of the body with regular pig DNA / cells not supposed to be eaten? Not sure how that works ethically.......
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Those are unlikely to be the same pig. The pigs raised for organ transplant are raised in highly sterile environments, designed to keep viruses away from them. The problem isn't elthics (which people rarely let stop them from anything they consider important), but economics.
I suppose that, in principle, someone could salvage the rest of the pig and eat it, and perhaps this occasionally happens. But I wouldn't bet huge sums on that, because it isn't properly slaughtered. The folks working on the transpla
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Just have to sell the engineered pig left overs as some "special bacon".
There will be alot of people willing to pay top dollars to try unusual food.
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Pigoons (Score:2)
So (Score:2)
published in the journal Cell Stem Cell
Name land grab loser, like seeing another player run by with the name xxXWolfferineXxx.
Stand Alone Complex (Score:2)
I remember one episode with organ farm with bar coded pigs that has cloned customer parts.