From my (admitedly limited) understanding of immunology, adaptive immunity is triggered by the presence or absence of non-self antigens, and is not interfered with by the presence of self antigens--the presence of human antigens does not mask the non-human ones. So if a cell expresses both self as well as non-self antigens, its toast. In order to make pig organs easily swapable into people, merely expressing human proteins on the cell surface is not enough. Still neat in a kinda creepy way tho'
Slashdot Mirror
From my (admitedly limited) understanding of immunology, adaptive immunity is triggered by the presence or absence of non-self antigens, and is not interfered with by the presence of self antigens--the presence of human antigens does not mask the non-human ones. So if a cell expresses both self as well as non-self antigens, its toast. In order to make pig organs easily swapable into people, merely expressing human proteins on the cell surface is not enough. Still neat in a kinda creepy way tho'