Word: transplantation
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Cows genetically engineered to produce valuable human proteins, for example, or pigs whose organs have been altered to remove proteins that trigger rejection after transplant operations, could be stamped out on an assembly line. Fast racehorses or blue-ribbon pets might be duplicated at will. In humans, both cancer and the aging process involve genetic changes at the cellular level. Thus a better understanding of how genes work might someday have implications for anti-cancer and anti-aging treatments...
...nerves, blood vessels, tendons, muscles and bones, but it's the sort of delicate operation that hand surgeons have been doing for years. The big question, when a borrowed hand is involved, is rejection. While new immunosuppressant drugs are improving the success rate of all kinds of organ transplants--from hearts and lungs to kidneys--a body part composed of as many different tissues as the hand poses special immunological challenges. A similar transplant was attempted in Ecuador in 1964, but the donor hand was rejected within two weeks...
Pioneering surgeons used to wait until after the operation before claiming their 15 minutes of fame. Not anymore. In Louisville last week a team of doctors announced their intention to perform "the world's first successful hand transplant"--using a limb from a fresh cadaver--before lifting a scalpel or even picking a patient...
...expected, the statement elicited a flurry of second opinions. "It would be revolutionary," said Dr. Neil Jones, chief of hand surgery at UCLA Medical Center, who acknowledged that the Kentucky doctors are among the best in the business. But would the transplant take? "Based on what we know of their animal research," he says, "I'd say they're premature." Dr. Andrew Palmer, president of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand, characterized the announcement as "driven as much by marketing as by betterment of the patient...
...Creating pigs with transplantable organs could mean big business for the two firms -- at least 50,000 Americans are on the waiting list for a transplant. But there's another, more ominous implication: If the Honolulu technique is able to produce cloned pigs as well as mice, it's more likely to work with humans, too. Put your order...