Transgenic Pigs for Organ Transplants
The rising shortage of donor organs has led scientists to genetically engineer animals that will produce organs suitable for transplant into humans. Pigs are well suited to the procedure because their organs are similar in size to a human’s, and they breed prolifically.
Human genes are inserted into the pig's DNA. The method most often used is microinjecting the genes directly into the nuclei of the fertilized eggs. The gene integrates itself into the animal’s genetic code at a single site, though multiple integrations are known to occur. If the gene fails to integrate before the later stages of cell cleavage in the embryo’s development, some cells will not carry the transgene. This is known as mosaicism.
The genes being inserted produce human decay accelerating factor (hDAF). This protein is found in human organs, and it prevents the body’s immune system from attacking the organ. Previous xenotransplants or organ donation among different species resulted in what is termed hyperacute rejection. The rejection of the organ occurred within minutes, which is too fast to be prevented by the immune suppressant drugs used in human to human organ transplants.
Pigs that undergo the genetic engineering procedure are known as founders, and are bred to produce more transgenic pigs. The resulting litters have to be homozygous for the transgene to produce the high levels of hDAF required for transplantable organs. Lines can be produced from homozygous founders, or by crossing heterozygous founders from different lines to produce “jigsaw pigs”. All pigs are tested to verify that they are homozygous for the transgene using florescence in situ hybridization (FISH).
Transplants of transgenic pig organs into primates such as monkeys and baboons have shown success. Further testing will have to be conducted before xenotransplants are approved for humans, however. Researchers are worried that porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) may be transmitted to humans by the transplants. Pig DNA contains sections with virus-like qualities, and it has been proven these retroviruses can infect human cells.
Anorexia Nervosa has been a problematic disease many women suffer from. The article “The Slender Trap” was composed by Trina Rys who is a stay at home mother with a husband and one daughter. Rys writes the main reasons a woman may develop anorexia from. She states that the psychological pressures, expectations of friends and family and influences of the media all are factors when a woman is inflicted with the disease. I strongly agree with Rys persuading argument that anorexia could be caused by an unknown identity and the overall main focus of the ideal image of a woman. Although, I believe Rys requires a stronger argument on whether food restrictions executed by parents are a major step to developing the harmful illness. She seems to put emphasize on mainly women but does not shine any light on men.
Many ailments can be cured or at least ameliorated by the replacement of an organ and the progression of medical science has increasingly allowed more types of organs to be successfully transplanted. Doctors’ ability to transplant is thwarted, however, by the disproportionate number of patients in need of such life-saving treatment relative to the number of donor organs available. Due to a variety of circumstances there just aren’t enough spare organs to go around. In light of this situation and the ever increasing number of people who die every year while waiting for an organ donor, xenotransplantation has become a very attractive alternative to human transplants, for obvious reasons. While there may be a shortage of human organ donors, we can easily envision animals being bred for their organs and providing an almost unlimited supply.
This essay is about animal to human organ transplants otherwise known as Xenotransplants. Even though this procedure is meant to save lives, it is giving rise to metaphoric Frankenstein’s monsters and putting some aspects of the Human Race at risk. This essay will discuss diseases that can jump species and cause catastrophic dangers for humans such as Ebola and AIDS which the human population has no resistance towards. I will also explore the different religious view points on Xenotransplantation.
Many causes are attributed to anorexia, and scientists have studied the personalities, genetics, environments, and biochemistry of people suffering from this disorder. Women most often share various traits--although the more that is learned, the more complex each individual case becomes--low self-esteem, feelings of helplessness, and a fear ...
The theory behind transplanting porcine organs into humans is relatively simple. Humans and pigs have such similar physiologies that transplanted organs would behave the same ways in humans as they do in pigs. After the operation, it is just a matter of suppressing the immune system to prevent the organ's rejection. In fact, livers transplanted from pigs are already being used as temporary solutions for many people waiting for human donors.3 Unfortunately, "temporary" is the key word here. Porcine cells have a sugar not found in human cells, which the immune system recognizes and instantly attacks in what is calle...
Childhood abuse may be our number one public health issue (Wylie 1). Munchausen By Proxy is a type of child abuse, where the perpetrator is most commonly a parent or guardian of a small child. The parent will purposely neglect and abuse their child to receive attention from doctors and other individuals. This leads us to question, what leads a parent to mistreat their children in the first place?
Trivedi, Bijal P. “Cloned Pigs modified for Use in Human Transplants”. National Geographic News 3 Jan 2002. Retrieved 6 April 2011 from nationalgeographic.com
The next application of animal biotechnology in pharmaceutical is artificial organ for transplant. Organ transplant can be defined as “a surgical operation where a failing or damaged organ in the human body is removed and replaced with a new one” (Paul, Valapour, Bartele, Abbott-Penny, & Kahn, 2004, p.5). According to Paul, Valapour, Bartele, Abbott-Penny, and Kahn (2004), example of organs that can be transplanted are skin, cornea and bone marrow that are less invasive but require specialized procedures. Cooper and Ayares (2012) mentioned that xenotransplantation is cross-species organ transplantation from animal to treat human. Furthermore, every year human need organs, tissues and cells for transplantation but lack in number of deceased human organs, so the interest of using organs and cells from animal species are rises continuously (Cooper & Ayares, 2012). Other than that, Houdebine, Lena and Burachik (2012) had stated that the most likely species for clinical transplantation into human is pig. In human heart surgery, the pig heart valves have been used for almost 30 years and in 1960’s, the best result was achieved when a chimpanzee’s kidney was transplanted into one patient who lived for nine months after the surgery (Nairne et al., 1996).
Today, as many as 10 out of 100 young teens struggle with an eating disorder. Each year, many teens develop eating disorders, or problems related to their weight, body image, and food. Anorexia is a serious eating disorder associated with an intense fear of weight gain and food. People who suffer from anorexia limit the amount of food they eat and have a distorted view of their body size and shape and may become dangerously thin. That is because the disorder affects not only their body but also their mind. Although the cause of anorexia is not fully understood, there is evidence that physical, biological, and social triggers are part of problems in anorexia. All of these causes revolve around the society we are living in today.
A transducer is a mechanism that changes one form of energy to another form. A toaster is a transducer that turns electricity into heat; a loudspeaker is a transducer that changes electricity into sound. Likewise, an ultrasound transducer changes electricity voltage into ultrasound waves, and vice versa. This is possible because of the principle of piezoelectricity, which states that some materials (ceramics, quartz, and others) produce a voltage when deformed by an applied pressure. Conversely, piezoelectricity also results in production of a pressure whe...
The Center of Disease Control and prevention defines child abuse as any act or series of events that results in harm, potential harm or threatens the child’s safety (Webb, 2007). While many people believe that child maltreatment is simply physical many other forms of maltreatment occur; sexual abuse, neglect and abandonment are also common forms of abuse. Domestic Violence is also included in the definition of child maltre...
In 2004 another experiment was created in Rochester Minnesota at the Mayo Clinic. The clinic was the first to create pigs that used human blood in place of their own. In 2005, two more hybrids are created the first being a mouse with human brain cells and the second is a feline-human protein hybrid. These hybrids are being created to fight and cure cancers and diseases including Parkinson and Alzheimer’s disease. 2007 and 2008, sheep ...
Tool holder connects and also holds the tool to the transducer. It practically transmits the energy and also in some situation, amplifies the amplitude of vibration. M...
The effects of child abuse are multiple. The pain and trauma the abused child goes through is just a small part of how this cauldron of hidden depravity in our society affects all of us. Wrecked lives can be seen in persons of all ages and in all walks of life. Society as a whole is also effected by child abuse both in negative and positive ways. In this essay I will present some of the factor and results of this violent behavior on individuals as well as our culture.
The idea of organ transplants has been around for centuries, tracing back to myths by ancient Greeks and other early civilizations but people were unable to perform any surgeries for many years because they did not have the right technology and science to keep someone alive with a transplant. In the 1700’s, a Swiss naturalist, Abraham Trembley, observed the powers of organ regeneration in a tiny pond animal he called the hydra but could not do much with the information he gathered (Markovitz 98). It was in the early 1900’s when doctors started to try transplanting organs from one living thing to another. During this time, European doctors had patients dying of renal failure. In order to save them, they transplanted kidneys from different animals into them such as monkeys, pigs, and goats. Unfortunately, they were not successful and the patients never lived for more than a few days. Though organ transplants had not been successful, in 1905, Eduard Zirm, an Austrian ophthalmologist, was able to perform the world’s first corneal transplant. The procedure gave sight to a man who had been blinded in an accident. It was a good start to human transplants, but they were still a long way away. “In 1912, Alexis Carrell received a Nobel Prize for his work in the field. The French surgeon had developed methods for connecting blood vessels and conducted successful transplants on d...