Re: Will Animals die(be killed) if they produce/donate an organ to a human?

Well it is a good question, coming from a  middle school student. Good in 
the sense that it is enouraging to see how the younger generation is 
thinking about the problems facing humanity, such as need for donor organs.

Any ways. Simply, if the organ donated is a vital organ such a whole liver 
than surely the animal donating the liver will be unable to survive, 
without its own liver.

Same thing for a heart. But usually animals have two kidenys and two 
lungs. Most animals in good health, (including humans) can afford to loose 
one of these paired organs and live normal lives. So, if a pig in this 
instance would agree to donate a kidney or a lung, it should live normally 
afterwards. 
The instances where Porcine (pig) livers have been used to sustain human 
life are few, and limited success has been seen since the pigs liver is 
recognized by the human body as foreign object and the human body tries to 
get rid of it just like it does against any bacteria or virus. In the 
process the human body destroys the TRANSPLANTED organ. this is what 
rejection of the transplanted organs is all about.

Presently we do not have the ability to prevent this rejection for a long 
period of time, but only for several hours to few days. The hope is that 
during that time a suitable human liver can be donated by a brain dead 
person, and can be transplanted. The idea is like using kidney dialysis, 
where a pig liver in a bucket is  hooked up to human areteries and veins 
and the unclean blood is circulated through the pig liver in the bucket 
and the clean blood is put back in to the human.

Now cloning of organs would avoid any of this by engineering organs de 
novo and not having to sacrfice any animals in the process. 
For further discussion about transplantation and cloning you could contact 
me directly via e mail, sjahani@uky.edu

Good luck with your project.

Salik Jahania, MD
Heart and Lung Transplantation
University of Kentucky