A new research concluded that one day, organ transplants can be made between animals and humans. However, the medical study is gravely criticized by the animal rights organization PETA, dubbing the research as "monstrous Frankenscience."
According to RT, a team from Stanford University School of Medicine and Institute of Medical Science at the University of Tokyo, led by genetics author and Professor Hiromitsu Nakauchi, was successful in doing interspecies transplantation between a rat and mice. Mouse pancreas were grown on rats to cure diabetes in mice. The same principle could make it possible to grow human organs on larger animals like sheep and pig - and to extract them when necessary to be transplanted on humans.
The mice was given transplanted pancreatic tissue from rats, and was given immunosuppressive drugs for a few days to stop their bodies rejecting foreign matter. After a year since the transplant, the diabetic mice were able to normalize their blood glucose levels - thus making the experiment a success.
Initially, the researchers implanted mouse pluripotent stem cells into rat embryos. The rats were genetically engineered to be unable to generate their own pancreas, thus they will depend on the mouse cells to develop the organ, Stanford reports.
As soon as the rats were born and ready, researchers will transplant insulin-producing cells from rat-grown pancreas into mice. The mice on the other hand was cultured to have diabetes. As soon as the mice received the transplanted cells from rats, their sugar levels normalized.
Though the study ended up with a promising solution for the increasing demands for organ transplants all over the world - having 76,000 cases in the US alone - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was enraged of the study results. According to PETA spokesperson, the objective for finding solutions for organ donor shortages is a laudable goal. However, using animals for such medical science was dubbed as "monstrous Frankenscience," and that the money used for these kinds of research should have been spent on non-animal science and education.
