Growing Transplantable Human Organs in Livestock
Channel: HMS Center for Bioethics
Date: 25/03/2021

Growing Transplantable Human Organs in Livestock
February 19, 2021

Currently there is a dire shortage of organs available for transplantation in the United States, leading to approximately twenty-two deaths per day among patients waiting for organs. While cell replacement therapies hold great promise for treating a variety of medical conditions, their utility for treating patients who require organ replacement is unclear. These patients need whole organs, not cells.

To address this challenge, Hiro Nakauchi, professor in the Department of Genetics
Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University, and others have proposed the use of genetically engineered livestock animals to generate transplantable rejection-free human organs derived from patients' own pluripotent stem cells. This proposal builds upon Dr. Nakauchi's interspecies work involving the generation of rat pancreases in mice, which provided proof of principle that an organ derived from one species can be generated in the body of another species host from donor pluripotent stem cells.

Hiromitsu Nakauchi and Insoo Hyun discuss the scientific, ethical, and policy challenges facing this remarkable strategy to alleviate the shortage of transplantable human organs.

Learn more about the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics at https://bioethics.hms.harvard.edu