Xenotransplantation Research Paper

Organ transplant saves thousands of lives every year, and is arguably one of the most significant medical innovations of the past century. However, the demand for organs far outweighs that of the supply, with many people not being able to receive the lifesaving organs they need. That is where Xenotransplants come in; Xenotransplantation involves the transplantation of nonhuman tissues or organs into human recipients. This essay will look at whether Xenotransplantation should be allowed by exploring the negative aspects of the procedure. Interspecies organ transplant is an operation that has more risks than benefits and that’s not to mention the ethical point of view. The risks associated with this procedure are; the risk of diseases from interspecies

When a human organ is transplanted from one individual into another, the recipient’s immune system attacks the organ because it is seen as foreign. If the immune response is extreme, the organ will be rejected and the transplant will fail. This is why human donor organs are matched with those of transplant patients as closely as possible. Even with closely matched organs, however, immunosuppressive drugs have to be used to subdue the response of the patient’s immune system to the transplanted organ. The more distantly related, in a biological sense, the human recipient and the source animal, the stronger the immune reaction. For this reason, attempts have been made in the US to use organs from primates, such as baboons, for xenotransplantation. Biologically speaking, primates are closely related to human beings so that problems of organ rejection may not be much more severe than those seen with human transplants. however, ethical concerns are raised by the use of primates for xenotransplantation. So efforts have been made to develop animals other than primates for use in xenotransplantation. Attention has focused in particular on the pig for several reasons. Pig organs are comparable in size and, to a lesser degree, physiology to those of human beings, and they reproduce quickly and produce large numbers of offspring. The use of pigs as a domestic animal that is farmed and

Genetically, the higher primates are remarkably similar to human beings: the genetic material of our closest relative, the chimpanzee, differs from that of human beings by just 2 per cent. Accordingly, many antigens are shared, and few differ. Thus, the immune response when a human receives a primate xenograft is broadly similar to the response to a poorly matched human organ. However, very close tissue matching when donor and recipient are from different species is impossible and rejection is therefore, correspondingly stronger than that seen with human transplants. Xenotransplantation between closely related species, where the immune response is not too extreme, is called (concordant xenografting). Rejection of concordant xenografts, as of human transplants, is usually because of the action of T-cells. In practice, organs transplanted from concordant species are handled in a broadly similar way to human transplants where donor and recipient tissues are poorly matched. Immunosuppressive drugs are used to prevent rejection of concordant xenografts although so far with less success than for human transplants. With continuing advances in the effectiveness of immunosuppressive drugs, however, it may become possible to control the immune response to concordant