Organs can now be grown!

[Occhidiangela]

I found this article to be particularly interesting: Link

Apparently, several bladders were "grown" using the patients own DNA and successfully implanted without the negative 'side-effects' associated with organ transplants (i.e. body rejection). The article claims science will soon allow us to grow any organ in the human body. This is really wonderful news! Hundreds, if not thousands of people in the US alone die while waiting for an organ transplant and now a method has been developed to ensure everyone can have one. I don't know about anyone else, but I find this avenue of science to be very exciting and look forward to what’s to come.
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Heard about this on the radio the other day. What are the long term ramifications, if any?

Skin is an organ. Does this mean skin can be regrown and transplanted, to undo the massive damage done in severe burn cases? What impact would this have on skin cancer? Can we stop using sun screen? ;) Will Hollywood beauties replace their skins rather than get yet another face lift? Interesting points to ponder.

Throughout the Western world, thousands of people die every year waiting for donor organs and thousands more never make it on to the waiting-lists; the potential benefits are enormous.

Instead of relying on organs from other bodies, doctors are investigating replacements grown by farming human tissue.

Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, North Carolina, who led the trial, said it was a vital step forward. "We have shown regenerative medicine techniques can be used to generate functional bladders that are durable," he said.

I note that people die of considerably more mundane ailments all the time in the "non Western world."

While this is a brilliant breakthrough for medicine and health science, not to mention biology, consider the following:

The world's population is in no danger of heading into negative growth. Is this a necessity or a luxury? From an evolutionary perspective, does this not aid and abet watering down the special gene pool? If dealing with a congenital ailment, what is the good of cloning bad tissue? Of course, it can't hurt to try and reboot the bladder, as it were. :D

I imagine if it is someone in one's family, it would be seen as a necessity -- if one can afford to do this. This takes us back to the non Western World problem of not being able to afford a medical procedure, for most people. Of course, having the option beats having your kids die in front of you from a failed organ.

Save a few thousand out of a few billion: not statistically meaningful, but powerful stuff in each individual case, among the wealthy.

I note that on the front page of the link, it is suggested that some people think donkeys make better companions than wives. What organs would one clone to save one's a_s_s? :lol:

Occhi