• Question: What are your opinions on clone organ donors?

    Asked by alamin to David, James, Mike, Suze, Will on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: William Eborall

      William Eborall answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Hi alamin. I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but I’ll try and answer from several points of view.

      If we’re talking about organs made to measure in a laboratory using the recipients cells as a template in some way then that seems fine to me. No one is harmed, it is merely another use of modern science to save lives.

      If we’re talking about using an animal to grow an organ like a heart to be used in a human, which will result in the death of the animal when transplanted, I think I still support this. Although it does result in a death, things like this are already done. Insulin to treat diabetics used to come from pigs and some modern medicines which use antibodies originally came from animals. It’s regrettable but everyday we kill animals (young and old) for meat – so I don’t think we can take the moral high ground here. At least the death will take away human suffering rather than just make a bacon sandwich.

      If you mean cloning a human or creating a “saviour sibling” I am completely against this. To me this de-values a human life as it actually says that person X is more important than person Y and I don’t think this can be justified in a society that believes in equality.

      Hopefully one of those answers your question, but let me know if I missed! 🙂

    • Photo: Mike Dodd

      Mike Dodd answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Hi Alamin, I agree with Will’s point about cloning of a human, just so you can have there organs. Every human life is precious and should be treated as such.

      There are some interesting experiments go on at the moment with the hearts and livers (These are still in the very early days though!!!). You can take the heart from a dead person (like you would for a heart transplant) but this time remove all the cells. What you are left with is the extracellular matrix, this looks like a mess or a “ghost” organ. This is made up of fibres of collagen (and a few other bits) and is the backbone on which all the cells grow. You can take stem cells from the patient that needs a heart transplant, make the cells divide hundreds of times to make a huge collection of cells and tell them to turn into heart cells. These cells can then flow through this “ghost” heart, where they attach themselves to the mess of matrix and start to make a new heart. After a while these cells start to beat again.

      Although at the moment, they don’t really make a real heart, just something that looks heart like. It can’t pump blood and the structure is a little wrong. But it is hoped that if they can change the way the cells grow on this mess of fibres, that they can give a heart failure patient a new heart, that was made from them, so it won’t be rejected. Rejection is the main reason you would need to clone an organ, so that your own body doesn’t take a transplanted heart

    • Photo: Suze Kundu

      Suze Kundu answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I don’t think I can answer this. There is some great techlonogy involved, but there are ethical, emotional, practical, etc, reasons for and against it. I think that it’s hard to think about and get your head around, but if you were in a situation where you needed an organ, then obviously you would go for it. It’s a really tricky one…

      Yeah, I can’t answer it!

Comments