Abstract
The availability of comprehensive health care services is of paramount importance to all of us. Given this critical interest and our high willingness to pay for individual survival, large amounts of public and private resources are continuously invested into the advancement of our medical capabilities. Those investments bring technologies within our reach that may soon help us to overcome some major challenges of today’s regenerative medicine. At the same time, new capabilities produce new responsibilities and revolutionary breakthroughs enforce new dimensions of awareness, thoughtfulness, self-control and institutional guidance. For this reason, our bioscientific research is closely accompanied by medical ethicists who try to ensure a smooth transition of ideas into practice and try to safeguard our progression into a more capable and yet sustainable future.
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Notes
- 1.
The potential of future stem cell based organ transplants has very recently been shown by Takebe et al. (2013), who provided a proof-of-concept demonstration of the generation of a vascularized and functional human liver from organ-buds that were transplanted into mice after their prior in vitro creation from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). The potential of a more regenerative therapeutical approach has also been demonstrated—see for example the work of Yui et al. (2012).
- 2.
See Ekser et al. (2009, p. 87): “Xenotransplantation is a potential answer to the current organ shortage. Its future depends on: (1) further genetic modification of pigs, (2) the introduction of novel immunosuppressive agents that target the innate immune system and plasma cells, and (3) the development of clinically-applicable methods to induce donor-specific tolerance.” Others think that these challenges might be overcome in the not too distant future and that our arrival at that point would be a plain question of money expenditures, for example Petersen et al. (2009, p. 101): “The techniques for introducing beneficial genes or removing undesired genes are available, but genetic modification of pigs and testing of these modifications in nonhuman primates is a very expensive and time- and labour-consuming interdisciplinary endeavour.”
- 3.
For further information on the industry’s development, see Nerem (2010).
- 4.
Compare Bruine de Bruin et al. (2009, p. 1…9): “As with other novel technologies, if xenotransplantation is to be judged fairly, proponents must explain its complex, uncertain, and unfamiliar risks and benefits. Xenotransplantation’s risks include the possibility of a recombinant virus infecting human transplant recipients, potentially causing an epidemic of an unfamiliar disease. […] However, because the actual probability of these events is unknown, the accuracy of [our evaluational] judgments cannot be evaluated.”
- 5.
Taylor et al. (2001, p. 983): “A comprehensive literature review identifies 1415 species of infectious organisms known to be pathogenic to humans [.] Out of these, 868 (61 %) are zoonotic, that is, they can be transmitted between humans and animals [.]”
- 6.
- 7.
See www.lctglobal.com.
- 8.
Extensively discussed in Paslack et al. (2012).
- 9.
See Shlaes and Projan (2009, p. 49).
- 10.
See Beckmann et al. (2000, p. 259): “If [the quarantine related restrictions of our social life and our personal freedom] would exceed the limits of acceptability, it does not follow that the protection of other people’s lives should be suspended, but that a transition to the clinic would be unjustifiable given these conditions.” [Translation by the author.]
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Reichardt, JO. (2016). Xenotransplantation and Tissue Engineering Technologies: Safeguarding Their Prospects sans Sacrificing our Future. In: Jox, R., Assadi, G., Marckmann, G. (eds) Organ Transplantation in Times of Donor Shortage. International Library of Ethics, Law, and the New Medicine, vol 59. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16441-0_21
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