Organ donations and transplantations have saved thousands of lives ever since the technique was put to action back in 1954. It was a novel way of thinking and indeed tackled many then unsolvable problems. However, the problem with the technique lies in the name itself; donation. This implies that in most cases one has to wait for someone to not only be sufficiently compatible with him/her but also for that someone to be either generous enough to be willing to give away one of his organs should he be able to live without it, or be dead should the transplant involve a heart or a lung or even both. So although organ donations have undeniably saved a lot of lives, they have also caused the deaths of many who died waiting for an organ to be compatible …show more content…
Since the markers on the grafted tissue and those on available tissue are identical (dubbed ‘self’ tissue), the T8 lymphocytes, which are cytotoxic white blood cells that recognize and destroy cells with foreign MHC, will not be triggered and hence they will not attack the grafted tissue (Selitkar, Dikovsky, and Napadensky 797). Previously, organ donations required the use of immunosuppressors which acted on the T8 cells making them tolerate foreign cells with slightly different MHC, but this process weakens the patient’s overall immunity and makes him/her susceptible to diseases (Selitkar, Dikovsky, and Napadensky 797). With the use of bio-printed tissues, this process is rendered unnecessary as the MHC of the transplant is tolerated by the T8 cells of the