Cloned Organs Demoed in Laboratory

texchanchan writes "Yahoo reports (warning: picture of cow fetus in bottle) that scientists have grown functioning, 'kidney-like' organs from cloned tissue, and put them back in the progenitor where they do their kidneyish job quite well. The scientists cloned embryos, from which kidney cells were extracted, and 'seeded [this] kidney tissue onto artificial structures that they hoped would grow into kidneys when transplanted back into the steer they were cloned from. ... By themselves, the kidney cells formed a small, kidney-like organ.' Regeneration here we come... especially if somebody learns how to do just the desired organ, not a whole new you with its potential for human rights, etc. To be published in June's Nature Biotechnology (costly registration required)."

Comments

Definitions unclear

[maddogsparky]

Using clear terminology, like "growing" instead of "cloning" when talking about a single organ could help discussions on the cloning debate.

It appears the the article's author is decidedly pro-cloning. They go on to state that the supposition that cloning won't result in viable, transplantable organ is a main reason people are against cloning.

I don't think that most people are against growing organs; even the pope thinks that therepudic research using non-embrionic stem cells is ok. This article seems to indicate that the author thinks people are against it because it can't be done, but since it can, it should be. In my experience, far more people have ethical problems with removing cells from an embrio, regardless of how the embrio is produced, with the intention of discarding the embrio after using some of its cells than with achieving similar results (growing a new organ) by techniques that do not involve the destruction of an embrio.

The important question should always be "should something be accomplished?", not "can something be accomplished?" When these questions are reversed, medical science could progress at a higher rate by using condemned criminals or other undesireables as research subjects.

I applaud advances in growing organs using non-embrionic stem cells; I pray for the day when using embrios for research is as universally seen as a morally repugnant.