Piglets cloned for organs Recently biomedical reserchers have announced that they have genetically engineered as well as cloned piglets in the hopes of stopping an organ transplant shortage. The two groups of piglets that scientists have created is believed to be a large step in making pig organs sutible for humans in organ transplants. Pig hearts, lungs, kidneys, and livers are the organs that reserchers are looking to use for transplants in humans.
Currently two teams of reserchers are working on this project, including PPL Therapeutics in Scottland that cloned Dolly the sheep. These groups are now facing the problem of making sure the pig organs are sutible to use. The human body does not easily accept foreign materials, such as a pig organ, into it so scientists are trying to make the pig organs more human like. The main problem is that swine contain a sugar molecule in their cells that humans don't have that. This sugar molecule is so foreign that once it enters the human body it's treated as a disease which means the organ itself is attacked and destroyed.
Though scientists are working on perfecting the pig cells there are still other hardships and questions to come. One problem that could arise would be that swine cells could contain unknown viruses, unknown to animals, but deadly to humans. No unwanted viruses have ben discovered so far, but some still worry.
This new technology could potentialy save thousands of lives though. There are about 75,000 people wainting for organ transplants already. Hopefully, this new advance will help save those lives and more. Dolly gets Arthritis Dolly has been stricken with arthritis which may prove that orginal cloning techniques in producing her were flawed. Dolly is only five and a half and already has arthritis. This is quite odd since five in a half is relatively young for a sheep.
Dolly's creator Ian Wilmut believes no one will ever find out whether Dolly's arthritis is due to the cloning or just natural. He also reports that beside her arthritis she is very healthy and has give birth to six lambs. More good news is that Dolly is responding well to her athritis treatment of anti-inflamitory medicine.
However this incident still stirs debate over cloning animals for use in human transpants. This also could be a pecursor to the mind set that cloned animals age before their time due to cloning them from adult DNA. More on her arthritis Dolly's arthritis seems to be creating more and more unaswerable questions. After the announcement of Dolly's arthritist, some scientists are begining to see this as a sign of premature aging, a flaw in cloning. Since Dolly was cloned from a six year old ewe many are wondering if Dolly has inherited that six years of life.
Another indicator of this is that Dolly's chromosomes inside her cells seem shorter than usual which is usually caused when DNA shrinks from age. Some reserchers say that Dolly's chromosomes are not significantly shorter though.
Some still say Dolly's arthritis is not caused by her cloning at all. Dolly was overweight when she was younger due to everyone luring with food to get her in front of cameras. This could have taken a toll on her back legs, both arthritic, when proping up un a fence to be fed.
Yet the main reason that scientists are disagreeing and no solid answers have been found yet is due to lack of information. Most heep usually don't live to be Dolly's age because they are butchered so no one really knows if Dolly is normal or not. Plus, there has been no significant amount of study done on older sheep. Hopefully, this will lead to further study to help all. 
Dolly and her creator, Ian Wilmut.
Picture courtesy of Time magazine |  |
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