Organ and Tissue

Transplantation
Science Perspectives 10: Chapter 3.7
Video: https://youtu.be/6rKUBBjaa0g

Organ Transplantation
Organ transplant is the moving of an organ from
one body to another, for the purpose of replacing
the recipients damaged or failing organ with a
working one from the donor site.
Organ donors can be living or deceased.

Face

History of Organ
Transplantation - Kidneys
1902 - The first successful experimental kidney transplants were
performed at the Vienna Medical School in Austria with animals.
1909 - The first kidney transplant experiments were performed in
humans in France using animal kidneys. A surgeon inserted slices of
rabbit kidney into a child suffering from kidney failure. Although the
immediate results were excellent the child died about 2 weeks later.
1933 - The first human-to-human kidney transplant was performed.
Unknown to doctors at the time, there were mismatches in donor and
recipient blood groups and the donor kidney never functioned.
1954 - Joseph E. Murray and his colleagues at Peter Bent Brigham
Hospital in Boston performed the first truly successful kidney transplant
from one twin to another. This was done without any
immunosuppressive medication. Why?

History of Organ
Transplantation
1818 First successful human to human blood transfusion by British
obstetrician Dr. James Blundell, to a patient for the treatment of
postpartum hemorrhage.
1967 First successful human to human heart transplant by Dr.
Christiaan Barnard, in South Africa.
1983 First successful single lung transplant, by Dr. Joel Cooper,
Toronto, Canada
1986 First successful double lung transplant, by Dr. Joel Cooper,
Toronto, Canada
2005 First successful partial face transplant, by Dr. Bernard
Devauchelle, Dr. Benoit Lengele and Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard,
France.

Types of Organ Donors

Persons after death; most common type.
Living persons related to recipients; best because it
increases the chances that the organ will be an
appropriate genetic match, therefore decreasing the risk
of rejection. Also means reduced waiting time for the
recipient.
Living persons unrelated to recipients.
Brain-dead persons; their breathing and heartbeat has
stopped, but are kept alive by a machine (called
cadaveric donors).

Living Donors
The donor remains alive and donates a renewable
tissue, cell, fluid, or donates an organ or part of an
organ in which the remaining organ can regenerate or
take on the workload of the rest of the organ.
Examples: Blood (regenerates), skin, lobe of lung, liver
(regenerates), kidney

Risks associated with Organ

Transplants
Due to the genetic difference between most organs and
the recipient, the recipients immune system will
identify the organ as foreign and attempt to destroy it,
causing transplant rejection.
To prevent rejection, recipients need to take medication
to prevent their immune systems from rejecting the new
tissue or organ.
With the immune system suppressed, the bodys ability
to fight off infections is reduced and the patient can die
from illnesses that would otherwise not be fatal.
Wait time is the second risk factor. The longer the wait
time, the higher the chance of death before getting the

Ethical Ways
There is a shortfall in human donors
The reason that most people waiting for an organ transplant
never receive one is simply that there are not enough human
organs to go around.

What can we do?

Could be addressed by increasing the number of willing
donors.
Use stem cells to replace cells that are lost or damaged from
disease or injury. For example, transplants of stem cells from
(matched) bone marrow were first done in the early 1970s and
are now regularly used to treat leukaemia.
Store stem cells extracted from umbilical cord blood to replace

Controversial Ways
Xenotransplantation
A transplant of organs or tissue from one species to another.
Most common: Heart valve transplants from pigs to humans.
Pigs are the current preferred donor species because their
organs are a similar size to human organs, they have large
litters and they are easy to rear.

Human-Pig Chimeras
Injecting human stem cells inside pig embryos. Result = pigs
with human organs
Video: https://youtu.be/Avpcno5fx-M
What do you think?

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