"The idea is fairly simple: take an organ from a human donor or animal, and use a mild detergent to strip away flesh, cells and DNA so that all is left is the inner "scaffold" of collagen, an "immunologically inert" protein."
Sure, but you'd have to take apart another person first.
This probably is a point, though. The ideal would be to injection-mold the scaffolds, spray on any helpful markers discovered through research like this, and let everyone grow a couple spares and keep 'em in the fridge (or on the coffee-table, quite a conversation piece)... But in the meantime, live organs are damn fragile and need to actually stay in functioning shape to drop-in; the collagen probably stays 'fresh' much longer, so a donor organ that's not quite ripe for transplant for one reason or another could still wind up saving a life.
Perhaps this'll also work out for 'close-enough' transplants from food animals... not really a pleasant thought, but we're certainly freeing up lots of potential scaffolds from them every day.
IF we did this in people it would avoid rejection. Normally, the transplanted heart has lots of markers which identify it as foreign. Their immune system would immediately set about trying to isolate it from the rest of the body and kill it. To prevent this transplant patients take immune suppressing drugs for the rest of their lives. This leaves them vulnerable to infectious diseases. So they also take more drugs to try to kill off anything nasty before it kills them. This is expensive and still messes up their lives. Sure, they're alive, but they're reminded every time they take those pills that they're on a short leash. It's not uncommon for patients to bend and even break the rules, a glass of champagne at a grand-daughter's wedding becomes a G&T every afternoon, and then they pretend they have no idea why they're having problems
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Sure, but you'd have to take apart another person first.
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Okay, we're thinking too hard on this.
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Perhaps this'll also work out for 'close-enough' transplants from food animals... not really a pleasant thought, but we're certainly freeing up lots of potential scaffolds from them every day.
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