Cloning

Johnny Utah

My first thread in CT (great forum btw).

Anyone else ever wonder why we're not able to clone human organs for medical purposes?

I understand the opposition to cloning human beings; but why can't we clone a human liver, for example. Reproduction of vital organs would have obvious benefits for medical procedures.

From reading other forums, a lot of people seem to think that the pharmaceutical companies have conspired to prevent the development of cloning. At first, I was a bit sceptical of this viewpoint, but the more you think about, it seems quite logical.

Myrddin

Im sure the technology exists to clone a liver for example, but how would you grow the liver once its been cloned. Think of all the miniscule blood vessels/nerve endings etc required for organ growth....I may be wrong, but afaik thats why it isn't done.

Johnny Utah

Good point, but I'm sure it can be done when you condier some of the miracles that the medical profession are able to perform nowadays. For example, I remember this programme a while ago which showed scientists growing a nose; they were growing skin cells (I think) in the shape of a nose. It wasn't perfect, but by the end of the procedure, it definitely took the shape of a nose, which was amazing.

Myrddin

I would imagine they grew the skin around the cast of a nose, essentially just a shell. The thing about a liver is that it obviously performs its magic from the inside, and has a lot of internal strucure, meaning cast growth methods etc would be pointless.

Stem cells have the ability to become whatever they need to be, but its a gradual process meaning they have to grow. And in order to grow they need blood supplies etc....I think for now this type of cloning is beyond us.

Mahatma coat

I remember readin about how they could grow human 'bits' inside pigs and then flush the piggy bits out and replace it with your own genetic code.

It would seem that knowldege is activley being suppressed, whether its big Pharma tryin to keep their anti-rejection Pills* or the Lizzzzzzzards wantin to reduce the size of the population and keep all the clever imortality stuff for themselves and their freemason buddies, or theirs the theory that the scientists are supressing it themselves because they realise the ramifications of a world where we can keep replacin bodyparts willynilly forever.

there are interesting developments in that field of science regularly enough still tho, so I dunno





* I do not mean ROOFIES

gerrycollins

Johnny Utah wrote: »

My first thread in CT (great forum btw).

Anyone else ever wonder why we're not able to clone human organs for medical purposes?

I understand the opposition to cloning human beings; but why can't we clone a human liver, for example. Reproduction of vital organs would have obvious benefits for medical procedures.

From reading other forums, a lot of people seem to think that the pharmaceutical companies have conspired to prevent the development of cloning. At first, I was a bit sceptical of this viewpoint, but the more you think about, it seems quite logical.

they simply cant because the organs need a body to support it.

Also it would need to be a working one there is not much point making one and then putting it into the body of a 30 year old when in effect the liver would be the working one of an infant ie brand new no users to date possible unknowns because of such.

Cloning is technically a simple procedure but its the moral implications and the fact that there has only been a few working clones on the planet, the work file is not yet usuable to move onto a non body organ production.

Fluffybums

I think you will find that there has been a bit of work done with transgenic animals with a view to pigs, for example, supplying organs with human proteins. However the problems of rejection still exist and there are ethical problems, legal and clinical trials to over come.

As for cloning livers, the problem as I understand it is that the liver is not just one cell type. To use omnipotent stem cells would require a detailed knowledge and ability to orchestrate the differentiation of the cells into the different types in the the correct orientation with respect to each other. As far as I know we do not have the knowledge yet as to the specific triggers that lead to the differentiation of a stem cell into say glia or epidermal cell or what ever. Once that knowledge is available, safety and clinical trials would still need to be overcome.

As for Pharma preventing the technology, I don't think that holds much water as a dead person does not need drugs and there are too few donars at present. Financially speaking it would be better if everyone that needed a transplant got one as they will live longer and presumable get ill and need drugs, also even with cloning some for of drug therapy will probably be need following transplant.

VinnyTGM

I can see "cloning" being used now for growing skin, ear's and nose's etc, just external feature's.
I'm sure it is possible to creat organ's, but I would imagine that it would take a long time, be very complicated and very costly.