The History of Organ Donation

Organ Transplantation

I chose this topic of organ transplantation because it seemed to be something that people often do not think about of considered until it is effecting them personally. Most of the people don’t considered the fact that an organ donation could save a life because someone close to that patient could not due to unmatchable tissue types. Often time s people do not consider that organ transplantation is a last resort for someone. Organ transplantation also caught my interest when we mentioned something about it in class. Furthermore, I began forming questions in my head like how they do it and how do they make sure that the tissue is rejected by the patient. Organ transplantation is something that has changed so much since it was first put into place the ancient history and the growth since then has been enormous.

The history of organ donation has grown immensely since it first began in the 16 century. It first began with an Italian surgeon, Gasparo Tagliacozzi, who is known to be the father of plastic surgery. Tagliacozzi reconstructed noses and ears using skin from the patient’s arms. When Tagliacozzi used skin from a different donor he noticed that the procedure often times failed. At the time, Tagliacozzi was observing what his successors would come to know as transplantation reject due to unmatchable tissue typing. Then in the early 1900’s European doctors attempted to use animal organs in humans who were dying of renal, renal meaning kidney, failure. None of the recipients lasted for more than a few days unfortunately. I believe that the negative outcome of the failure was due to the different chemistry that animals have versus that of humans. In 1905, the first recorded corneal transplant took place by an...

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...e fact that the organ was grown from the patient’s own cells, therefore it carries no risk of rejection. Once the organ is in, the scaffold degrades and the bladder adapts to its new, yet old, home. This particular lab has already created a bladder and has inserted it into a person to see how the body adapts to the organ, which they call Phase II. After 5 years they have found that the bladder is working perfectly in sync with the patient. This research for lab grown organs began with Dr. Anthony Atala. He and his research team at Wake Forest University Medical Center pioneered the world’s first lab-grown bladder, and they remain at the forefront of the organ-growing field. Wake forest currently are working on 22 types of tissues such as: heart valves, muscle cells, arteries, and even fingers. Currently they are looking for a way to create an artificial pancreas.