source: https://slate.com/technology/2022/08/xenotransplantation-pigs-heart-kidney-donor-virus.html#:~:text=Xenotransplantation%20could%20be%20the%20future,could%20be%20kept%20virus%2Dfree.&text=Not%20too%20far%20in%20the,busy%20creating%20pig%2Dhuman%20hybrids.
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Date
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9/23/2022
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publishing company
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STATEGROUP
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Title
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Xenotransplantation could be the future—if only the pigs could be kept virus-free.
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summarize
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This article is about xenotransplantation. There are over 100,000 Americans on the national transplant list in the United States, with an average of 17 dying waiting for an organ transplant. So, researchers were interested in xenotransplantation, which involves transplanting organs of other species into humans to prevent this from happening and to save human life. This article focuses on the heart, among many organs. Pigs are used for human heart transplantation, which are about 97% similar to human hearts. But this is said to be very dangerous. As reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, 57-year-old David Bennett, who received a pig heart transplant, contracted pCMV and died 60 days after surgery. This is due to an immune rejection reaction. This must be overcome in order to safely receive a pig's heart, which requires that the pig be "humanized" to be compatible with our bodies. To be humanized, at least three pig genes need to be knocked out using the gene-editing tool CRISPR. In addition, it takes an enormous amount of time, money and effort to bring pigs to birth aseptically.
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My thought
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It was amazing that a pig, a species different from a human, not a monkey or a chimpanzee, resembled a human heart, and that it survived for about 60 days after transplanting it into a human. And also It was surprising that transplanting pig hearts into humans requires a tremendous amount of time and effort, including genetic manipulation, sterility, and regular testing. But I focused more on the inside of this seemingly good study. Pigs judged to be free of viruses through the above complicated process, when they grow to the size of an adult human after 6 months, cut their organs and prepare for transplantation into humans. I believe that human life is important, but that of other animals is just as important. Pigs, born to give new life to humans, die in less than six months, without even enjoying freedom, only for humans. I think this kind of behavior is really unethical. Through this article, I became more interested in artificial organs that can create organs that can give people new life without killing animals, and I want to explore more about them.
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New learn/ topics to explore further/
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I want to explore more about artificial organs
1. How can we make an artificial organ that resembles the structure of a human organ?
2. What is the most important thing about artificial organs?
3. Have there been any cases of artificial organs being transplanted into humans?
4. If an artificial organ is transplanted into a human, will it be usable forever? Should I change it every year or every few years?
5. The inner side of the artificial organ
6. Prons and cons of artificial organs
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