breeding of anencephalic humans for organ transplants

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I'm uncertain on this one. On one hand, it could be seen as nothing more than growing all the organs we need in a way that they happen to be linked together, but on the other, you're deliberately inhibiting the development of the brain...

As with all messy issues, I'd prefer to take a path which sidesteps the matter. Such as breeding animals with human compatible organs, like pigs without pig-specific antigens in their heart tissue. Or even better, growing the organs from stem cells, which I expect to happen within the next few decades.

I see it it exactly like that. We grow, all the organs, and they just happen to be linked together.

You can see growing individual organs in the reverse? As a fetus that we grow, but inhibit their development of everything, except the organ of interest. I think people opposing stem cells see it that way.

Breeding animals for xenographs will bring it's own problems. We'll get there diseases as a gift. The revenge of the pigs. In my opinion human animals hybrids of any form should be banned. We are asking for trouble.

Stem cells in my opinion are over hyped and difficulties are understated. Researchers fishing for funds did a good job in selling it.
I believe, stem cells are like fusion power. Sure in theory it works, in practice it still hasn't come.
For a technology, is not enough to see if it's possible, you need to see if it's practical. Zeppelins can fly, but we don't use them. We could colonize the moon right away, but we don't do it.
I think in practice, stem cells will be so insanely expensive that they will not be used. With out mentioning that the research alredy cost a hell of a lot of money, with little real results to show. Research in anencephalic farms will be considerably simpler and faster. You don't need of a Ph.d to do the farms, even a third word country should be able to develop them.

And also, in you're time table, we both will risk be alredy dead, when they come in theory.
My scheme on the other hand can give a working prototype in a couple of years. Stem cells can't do that.
It can give you hearts right away. Stem cells still haven't produced a full organ, like a heart or a liver.

I'm saying, you underestimate the real difficulties of doing what you are proposing, by a long shot.

An argument you should be making is that an organ grown can't be tested on like a full human body can.

If you can grow a human heart do you have a full human to test on? No.

The thing about a human without a brain however is that any testing done to find out about our neurology would still be impossible. I think we are most interested in discovering more about the human brain.

It would still be more useful to test a full body without a brain than to test a single organ.



As for your argument that stem cells are decades away I can't take your word for it. I don't know. Maybe you're right and maybe you're wrong. For all I know you could be twisting things a bit or exaggerating just to point out another advantage to your idea.

I don't know much about the subject but it just doesn't sound believable that the use of stem cells is outside of our lifetimes. Just because it doesn't sound believable to me doesn't mean it isn't true. I just can't accept it on your word. Can you cite a source?

This would be for me a critical part. Creating a healthy human being, and then technical cripple this being by will, is the part where an victims exists, according to my oppinion.

So all this breeding or creating flesh ba machines, and knows what, I have no problem with that. But create a healthy being and making it ill, so I can excuse myself to kill it afterwards, because it is ill anyway, i cant agree.

Create it without a brain from the beginning (as example by natural DNA failure) and I see no problem. But creating a healthy human and cripple it to butcher it out is Nazi Dr. style. ^^

And i'm not sure how you can keep any organ by it self alive for long.



Don't forget that in these kind of things there's always a lot of politics involved.
You can find other stuff your self. Be aware that right wingers and religious people use the same arguments. That doesn't make the arguments wrong.

For example this site seams decentish.
http://www.startupmuse.com/2006/11/wher ... -research/

That even beater
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC557997/

nice quotes
http://bigthink.com/age-of-engagement/a ... pe-to-come

....etc

Look the complexity we are talking about is baffling.
Natural selection did a series of incredibly complicated hacks. It's a total mess. For example in our brain, there's a first part that send a signal as if all the fingers aren't autonomous (ancestors with paws), and a second that cancel part of the first signal, so that we can move our fingers independently.
You see what i mean, it's a mess. A mess at every level.

If you wan't to make an organ "manually". You need to decrypt the mess. Reinvent methods to put the cells at the right position, induce there corect specialization, etc.....
You need a Ph.d to do almost nothing in practice.
That means that it will be extremely expensive.

I can only compare it to fusion. They say in 50 years, since over 50 years.
Why we don't have it alredy? How many billions where spend alredy for zero results?

How many billions stem cell research has already swallowed up ? And for what results?

We don't remove there brain, we prevent the brain from forming.

At days 23-27 (or something like that) The neural tube closes at the tip, then fluid is push inside the tube, and the tip is blown like a balloon. The "balloon" will become the brain. If the tube fails to close, pouf, no brain. Anencephaly.

I suppose i was too pedantic. The genetic tweaking will be the best solution. You can have simpler methods. I'll edit the OP.

Utterly and completely stupid.

I say that from a practical, medical, legal and ethical perspective. The only realm in which I see this as practical is the realm of science fiction.

The suggestion about about leaving the rostral end of the neural tube open requires microscopic surgery at a very specific window of opportunity. 23 to 26 days post coception will mean 37 to 40 days gestational age. Many women may not even be aware that they are pregnant at this point. So for greater certainty we would have to rely exclusively on fetuses conceived in vitro. But in these cases, we would have to rely upon implantation--which is not always successful--and then the implanted fetus would have to be located, and surgically altered. The embryo will be less than 5 mm long. Within this embryo, a surgeon will need to open a hole the size of a hair. Surgical alteration of the neural tube sufficient to cause anencephaly, but not so grievous as to kill the embryo is, practically speaking, impossible.

I have irreconcilable ethical concerns with this. At implantation, such a fetus is--barring evidence to the contrary, a living human organism, with full potential to survive. And while I would have absolutely no reservations about terminating the pregnancy before the threshhold of viability, I have very grave reservations about inflicting deliberate surgical injury with the clear intention of carrying the child to term. What if the injury does not produce anencephaly, but some other, lesser neural tube defect? What if, instead of the expected neural tube defect, the injury produces an unexpected consequence, like microcephaly? How many iterations are parents likely to go through before hitting upon winning donor fetus?

The notion of doing so gentically does not present much prospect of sucess, in my view. While there is some evidence to suggest a genetic link, it is not at all clear that there is any genetic marker that can be identified. Far more likely is that a complex of genetic circumstances present conditions which inhibit neural tube closure.

But supposing we could take these steps, then next question is the practicality of this as a therapeutic source. Ideally, if you have an infant who needs transplant, your ideal solution is to have the parents conceive another child as the source. Well, that's a nine-month process. Actually, it's a lot longer than that. Because first we have to embark on egg harvesting. And then we have to embark on fertilization and implantation. And we have to hope that implantation is successful the first time. And we have to hope that neural tube closure is successfully prevented. And let's not forget the need for the donor fetus to be a tissue match for the child who needs transplant; just because they are genetic siblings does not guarantee that result.

But assum we have successfully negotiated all of these hurdles. Let's not forget that not all anencephalic children are stillborn. A child with a functioning brainstem is still anencephalic. And just because the prospects for such a child are hopeless, does not mean that therapeutic use is possible. Let's look at the benchmark case: Baby Theresa. She was born alive in 1992--having been diagnosed as anencephalic in utero. Her parents sought to donate her organs, but she survived post-partum for nine days and her organs were no longer viable for transplant. A child born with a functioning brainstem is still anencephalic, but cannot be declared dead so long as brain stem reactions like spontaneous respiration are in place. And if they're not dead, their organs cannot be used for transplant.

And what happens with the rest? Baby A needs a heart. Baby B is conceived, anencephalated and a viable heart is harvested. What do you do with the lungs, the liver and the kidneys? Surely every child awaiting these organs has a mother incubating her own donor fetus. All of which suggests a very wasteful process. But I suppose charitable therapeutic use is always possible. So for Baby A, who is lucky enough to have wealthy parents, a bespoke donor fetus is created, and then, in a fit of noblesse oblige the extras are gifted to the less fortunate.

And remember, most of all, that there are three living, human beings--child, mother and father. In our ambitious zeal to heal the child, we run the risk of running roughshod over the parents. Is mother in a physical or mental state to undergo another preganancy under these circumstances? Can the parents cope with such a therapeutic approach?

Stem cell research is presenting far more prospect of success, with far fewer ethical hurdles to overcome.

Lets make sexy time with them too!

@visagrunt

You haven't read the OP. This is not about transplants for babies.
It's about transplants for adults.
The anencephalics will be breed between them. You'll have genetic engineering and selective breeding. No possibility for a brain to develop.

Stem cells are over hyped and will not deliver. It's like fusion.
Stem cells are insanely complicated to put in to practice.

Yes, why not.
You want to start an anencephalic bordello?

I even thought to use them as an alternative to people with serial killer tendencies.

I normally do not give in the Yuccchh factor but this is disgusting.

ruveyn

An all around bad idea. Also a steal from some novel, Frank Herbert? the Xian, who were the tech race, who grew gholas, clones, for parts, and for super warriors.

It was an expensive process, it takes a long time to grow a body, and raise it not knowing much of anything. They sold the product, but the process was very hidden.

For one, no one had ever seen a Xian female, nor were they ever spoken of.

The best minds did figure it out, there had to be females, but anencephalic, and to conserve resources, arms and legs removed. Basically reduced to life conected to a machine, keeping a womb alive and productive.

Through solving their own female problem, they had the genetics down to produce only the smartest, where tech was the social goal, and they were great at it, and little else. The whole culture had become a clone of the science staff who developed the process.

They did nothing but tech, no novels, plays, music, sports, no one knew what they ate, Their social life was small groups of males standing on street corners. Their apartments were all the same, undecorated. Each male lived in an identical box.

A few were bred to deal with the universe, the sales force. there was a corporate marketing and new products sub species.

To produce biomaterial for other species, they were known to buy, steal, females for production, and to activly seek superior types, so DNA and cell samples.

The ruling family of a planet would make good customers for organs, so cells were gathered, grown, and kept waiting,

Along the way cells of their children were gathered, grown into clones, and tested for response. Predicting the thoughts of important people could make fortunes.

Test subjects who were a clone of the child of most important people were also sold as sex toys. if their house fell and there would be no more demand for organs. They were also thought to be the Xian food supply.

Their machines and devices were magic, also booby trapped, try to take it apart it might blow up, or turn to a highly toxic gas, that killed everyone who entered the room, that did not kill for a month. Then they all died.

They had no personality, they were the same, they had one deal, tell them what you want, they quote a price, pay them, they deliver.

If your daughter had been poisoned, needed a new liver to live, they had been raising several clones and one could die to save her. The customers drove the ethics of the business, they had just learned to keep an inventory against possible need.

Otherwise, they could be used for wombs for other customers. Eventual, they were the food supply.

They grew up the same, produced as a product by the state, raised, conditioned, educated, with grades of A, B, C, Choice, Prime.

While their technology evolved, they as a species were pruned to only the productive, a sameness, that left them with nothing but the best tech in the universe.

It will work, but at a cost not worth paying.

I look the other way, let people die, less born, until there are less than a billion, and a very heathy planet. We are a product of a healthy planet, which we have trashed. Tech fixes will not keep up with a declining life support system.

Yeah, the idea of creating brainless humans to harvest their organs reeks of hubris. Count me out.

I'll hold out hope that regenerative medicine gets figured out. It may not happen in my lifetime, but it's not like we're going to breed a bunch of brainless humans within my lifetime either. Those brainless bodies will still need time to grow up.

What's the difference? Either way, you are directly and intentionally causing them to not have a brain. Why does the method matter?

The novel you are describing is about slaves.
The brainless females part is for completely different reasons, and implemented very differently. It completely misses the point.

The novel is very far away from what i'm proposing.
Are you sure you really got it?


Infant development is slowed down in relation to fetal development. If growth was maintained at maximum possible speed, you'll reach adult size very fast. Also brain organization takes time.
The reason of the slow down is rather evolutionairy, not a fundamental physiological barrier.

So, growth hormones. Long term, selective breeding and genetic engineering.



I does to me.

For me, if you have no brain, you have no rights. You don't even have animal rights. If they never have a brain, they never have any rights what so ever.

It would bother me, if we just went along with the legal abortion limits, and excised at an industrial scale millions upon millions of brain fetuses per year for organ production.

I'm in favor of abortion. But you use contraception in parallel. You can abort if you have an accident. But don't use abortion by it self as a contraceptive method. If you have done alredy 10 abortions, i'm not going to prevent you from doing an 11th, but i think that you are a b***h.

So. Contrary to what some of you might have thought of me. I'm still human.

What you are proposing is the first step to becoming Xians.

You really are mired in a fantasy world.

You have just made your crackpot idea even more stupid. If an anencephalic who survived for nine days did not present viable organs for transplant, how do you suppose that you can keep an anencephalic alive long enough for the purposes you propose? And that doesn't even touch on the question of creating further donors. The organism has to survive to undergo puberty and successfully reproduce. While some artificial induction of puberty is, of course, possible, you are still looking at the need to keep the organism alive for years.

So, every single one of your donor creatures now must have a brainstem. It is absolutely obligatory; the brainstem regulates cardiac rhythm and respiration. Furthermore, these donors need an autonomic nervous system in order to regulate digestion and maintain homeostatsis. In the complete absence of a brain, viability is impossible. Well, this means that your microsurgery on the embryo is now not merely a matter of keeping the rostral end of the neural tube open, you now have to ensure that you open two of the primary vesicles, but not the third. The hole the size of a human hair is now significantly smaller.

And legally, you are now in the world of a living human being. If a human has a functioning brainstem, then it is legally alive and is fully possessed of the entire complex of rights of a legal person (back to the Baby Theresa case).

You want a creature that isn't legally a human being, but that will create offspring and viable organs for harvest.

Well, you can't have it both ways. If the human is alive enough to reproduce and create viable tissue, then it has to have a functioning brainstem. And if it has a functioning brainstem, it is legally a human being.

So let's suppose the law was changed to deprive anencephalics of rights. Well, your scheme is still firmy resident in cloud-cuckoo land.

The greatest challenge in transplantation therapy is donor compatability. How are you going to ensure sufficient gentic diversity to ensure that available organs for transplant are going to be viable tissue matches for recipients? How many hundreds of thousands of potential donors do you need to create and keep alive in order to meet the demand for donated organs?

And what is the economic cost of nutrition and medical care for these individuals? How does this get paid for? More specifically, how does this get paid for without commercializing therapeutic transplants?

And you think stem cells are insanely complicated?

Put down the graphic novel and come back to the real world for a while.