X-Message-Number: 7750 From: (Thomas Donaldson) Subject: Re: CryoNet #7733 - #7746 Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 18:37:53 -0800 (PST) Hi! Re. Mr. Clark's posting: I commented on it before (Prometheus-forum) but he also makes a statement about biological engineering "someone will insert the human genes for surface proteins that the immune system uses to recognize..." If I recall, this has already been done. There are other issues with xenotransplants, however. One (which rightly or wrongly has a number of people tied up in knots) is the problem of transmitted disease. Second is the problem of making sure that (say) the pig kidney reacts physiologically the way a human kidney does. Just cloning someone is quite irrelevant to this technology. What you'd want to know is the genes responsible. Once you know that, it's been known for at least 5 and maybe more years how to create an animal containing those genes. They now have an Alzheimer's mouse, for instance, which gets Alzheimer's disease (they inserted the proper genes --- the brains of mice don't work as well when they age, but normally they show no symptoms of Alzheimer's). I do NOT mean to say that issues such as disease are insolvable. On the contrary, I think they can be solved. But this technology has very little to do with cloning. And for organ replacement, it may have a big advantage, in that we can get the needed organs more quickly by growing them in animals than by some elaborate arrangement starting with a human embryo. Long long life, Thomas Donaldsn Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7750