What cloning human body parts for transplants involves?
The first thing is Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer. This process would involve taking a donor egg, and removing its nucleus. This would be replaced by a cell nucleus from the patient. The result is stimulated to divide, and stem cells harvested from the resulting blastocyst. Stem cells are capable of forming any kind of tissue including organs. These would be grown on to form the required organ, then transplanted. Advantages : Organ is genetically identical to the patient, and will not be subject to rejection by the patient’s body, ending the use of the strong anti rejection drugs which transplant patients need. Disadvantages: requires a supply of eggs which may be spare from IVF couples, possibility of women donating eggs specifically for this, which risks turning them into commodities. Many ethical concerns, including the rights/wrongs of creating embryos in this way, only to destroy them for their stem cells… but this is for the alleviation of current human suffering Too much to go
