Xenotransplantation: When People Get Animal Parts
How can we transplant animal tissue into humans? And will we ever be able to grow customized organs? SciShow explains! Hosted by: Hank Green Written by: ...
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There are thousands of people who owe their lives to pieces of dead pig tissue -- and no, I’m not talking about the admittedly life-affirming taste of bacon. For the last fifty years, we’ve been replacing damaged human heart valves with pig valves. So, if we can transplant heart valves from pigs, why not entire hearts? Or kidneys or livers or lungs? How come you can you walk around with a pig’s heart-valve inside of you but you reject a kidney from another human? And out of all the creatures in the world, why PIGS? So many questions. Transplantation of organs from one species to another is known as xenotransplantation, and it turns out to be pretty bizarre. But since there’s a shortage of human organs, figuring out how to get a steady supply of animal organs and tissues that we coul...
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There are thousands of people who owe their lives to pieces of dead pig tissue -- and no, I’m not talking about the admittedly life-affirming taste of bacon. For the last fifty years, we’ve been replacing damaged human heart valves with pig valves. So, if we can transplant heart valves from pigs, why not entire hearts? Or kidneys or livers or lungs? How come you can you walk around with a pig’s heart-valve inside of you but you reject a kidney from another human? And out of all the creatures in the world, why PIGS? So many questions. Transplantation of organs from one species to another is known as xenotransplantation, and it turns out to be pretty bizarre. But since there’s a shortage of human organs, figuring out how to get a steady supply of animal organs and tissues that we coul...
