What encouragement would you support for ORGAN donations?

Human Tissue Industry Becomes Big Business

NEW YORK (AP) - Like a gallon of gasoline, the price of a human leg is all about supply and demand. And it's a seller's market. "There's a lot of money to be made on corpses,'' said Joshua Slocum, executive director of the nonprofit Funeral Consumers Alliance.
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Can organs be cloned for use in transplants?

Scientists hope that one day therapeutic cloning can be used to generate tissues and organs for transplants. To do this, DNA would be extracted from the person in need of a transplant and inserted into an enucleated egg. After the egg containing the patient's DNA starts to divide, embryonic stem cells that can be transformed into any type of tissue would be harvested. The stem cells would be used to generate an organ or tissue that is a genetic match to the recipient. In theory, the cloned organ could then be transplanted into the patient without the risk of tissue rejection. If organs could be generated from cloned human embryos, the need for organ donation could be significantly reduced.

Many challenges must be overcome before "cloned organ" transplants become reality. More effective technologies for creating human embryos, harvesting stem cells, and producing organs from stem cells would have to be developed. In 2001, scientists with the biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) reported that they had cloned the first human embryos; however, the only embryo to survive the cloning process stopped developing after dividing into six cells. In February 2002, scientists with the same biotech company reported that they had successfully transplanted kidney-like organs into cows. The team of researchers created a cloned cow embryo by removing the DNA from an egg cell and then injecting the DNA from the skin cell of the donor cow's ear. Since little is known about manipulating embryonic stem cells from cows, the scientists let the cloned embryos develop into fetuses. The scientists then harvested fetal tissue from the clones and transplanted it into the donor cow. In the three months of observation following the transplant, no sign of immune rejection was observed in the transplant recipient.

Another potential application of cloning to organ transplants is the creation of genetically modified pigs from which organs suitable for human transplants could be harvested . The transplant of organs and tissues from animals to humans is called xenotransplantation.

Why pigs? Primates would be a closer match genetically to humans, but they are more difficult to clone and have a much lower rate of reproduction. Of the animal species that have been cloned successfully, pig tissues and organs are more similar to those of humans. To create a "knock-out" pig, scientists must inactivate the genes that cause the human immune system to reject an implanted pig organ. The genes are knocked out in individual cells, which are then used to create clones from which organs can be harvested. In 2002, a British biotechnology company reported that it was the first to produce "double knock-out" pigs that have been genetically engineered to lack both copies of a gene involved in transplant rejection. More research is needed to study the transplantation of organs from "knock-out" pigs to other animals.

Partially, the idea of cloning in order to yield organs has been
already tested. "Therapeutic cloning: (a.k.a. Somatic cell nuclear
transfer or research cloning): This starts with the same procedure as
is used in adult DNA cloning. The resultant embryo would be allowed to
grow for perhaps 14 days. It's stem cells would then be extracted and
encouraged to grow into a piece of human tissue or a complete human
organ for transplant. The end result would not be a human being; it
would be a replacement organ, or piece of nerve tissue, or quantity of
skin. The first successful therapeutic cloning was accomplished in
2001-NOV by Advanced Cell Technology, a biotech company in Worcester,
MA." (SOURCE: Religious Tolerance Website,
<http://www.religioustolerance.org/clo_ther.htm>).

See the Advanced Cell Technology site at <http://www.advancedcell.com/>

However, "But the fetuses were grown for that long only because
researchers have not yet found a way to harvest stem cells from a new
bovine embryo, said Robert Lanza, medical director at ACT." (SOURCE:
"The Next ACT in Clone Controversy" WIRED,
<http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,53104,00.html>).

You could read about ACT's work in another Wired article, "Seven Days
of Creation" January 2004
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/clones.html?tw=wn_tophead_3>.

This, on the bottom line, was done on animals - except for skin
transplants (that are not exactly cloning). ""Experiments have already
been conducted using cows in which cloned embryos were implanted,
gestated to the early fetal stage, aborted, and their organs harvested
for transplantation." (SOURCE: "State of Cloning"
<http://www.nationalreview.com/lopez/lopez200401051346.asp>).

Lately, Prof. Panos Zavos of the Andrological Institute of America
<http://www.aia-zavos.com/index.html> claims to have being able to
clone an embryo, in order to create twins, from which one will be
developed into a full human being, and the other will be used, if
necessary, as a source for organs.

This will be done in a method called "Blastomere separation", or
twinning. It "involves splitting a developing embryo soon after
fertilisation of the egg by a sperm (sexual reproduction) to give rise
to two or more embryos.The resulting organisms are identical twins
(clones) containing DNA from both the mother and the father. Before
making his shock announcement, Dr Panos Zavos unveiled plans to seek a
woman prepared to receive a split embryo, half of which would be used
for "spare part" surgery." (SOURCE: ic Wales, "What is Cloning"
<http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0600uk/content_objectid=13832834_method=full_siteid=50082_headline=-What-the-cloning-debate-is-all-about-name_page.html>).

However, the plan, concieved with Dr. Paul Sainsbury, is highly
controversial, and has not been publically tried.
SEE:
"'Body spares' cloning condemned" ITV News 17 Jan 2004,
<http://www.itv.com/news/671979.html>.

I hope this gave you a review of the current trends in cloning. I
recommend that you'll follow Google News on the question with the
keywords "therapeutic cloning":
<http://news.google.com/news?num=50&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22therapeutic+cloning%22>
(On your left hand bar you have the opportunity to receive news alerts
from Google News). In order to search for an answer, I searched for
"therapeutic cloning"
cloning organ
cloning organ human

Please contact me if you need further clarification on this answer
before you tip/rate it.