Growing artificial organs: sheep instead of bioreactors

Japanese scientist claims breakthrough with organ grown in sheep
Leo Lewis, The Times, May 5, 2009
A Japanese scientist talks about a breakthrough: he managed to grow a "spare" organ in a sheep
Translation: InopressaScientist Yutaka Hanazono is confident that the technology he is developing for "growing" organs in sheep will help satisfy Japan's chronic insufficiency in donor organs.

At the same time, doctors and some parliamentarians are calling for a change in the definition of "death" in national law – the current interpretation actually makes it impossible to perform transplantation.

Hanazono willingly shows the journalist the sheep involved in the experiment. There is a small trace of the operation on her belly, and behind it is a "spare" pancreas grown on the basis of chimpanzee stem cells. When it is ready, it will be transplanted to a monkey suffering from diabetes.

The scientist believes that it will soon be possible to move from primates to humans. Sheep, in his opinion, will become living storages for people who need a liver, heart, pancreas or even skin. It will happen in ten, maybe twenty years, Hanazono suggests.

"We have achieved very great success," he says, "we have shown that growing organs in vivo (in a living organism) is more effective than creating them in vitro (in vitro). But we really need to hurry up."

Japanese scientists are in a hurry because the conditions of international transplant tourism are becoming more complicated, and due to the peculiarities of Japanese law (death is not considered to be the cessation of brain work, but cardiac arrest), it is almost impossible to find a donor in Japan itself. Now, however, a public discussion is underway, and parliament may revise this law.

Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru05.05.2009