In Brief... World News Review: Nuclear Transfer Technology Cloning Pigs and "Growing" Organs

Jul 29, 2010
3 minutes read time

Hope in the field of medical transplants.

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Genetic engineering and the cloning of pigs have come together to encourage hope in the field of medical transplants. Some 60,000 people in the U.S. are on a waiting list to receive a new organ. Finding a donor is only the beginning, for every patient faces the real potential of having a new organ rejected immediately upon transplantation. Large quantities of powerful anti-rejection drugs are administered, but they weaken the person's entire system. Once the initial hurdle is passed, rejection is still possible and anti-rejection medication is necessary over the long term. Therefore, quality of life may be far from ideal. What can be done to improve the transplant patient's odds of finding a donor, surviving the surgery and not rejecting the new organ in the long term? Enter the common pig. Well, not so common, actually. Enter the genetically altered, cloned pig. Animal-to-human organ donation is known as "xenotransplantation." If the technology to grow acceptable animal organs can be mastered, an unlimited supply of organs will be available for transplantation into humans. The same technology that brought the world Dolly, the cloned sheep, has made it possible to clone pigs. That technology is nuclear transfer, removing the nucleus from an egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus of a cell that scientists wish to clone. Cloning pigs is more difficult that cloning sheep, cattle or mice-all of which have been done. Some new techniques were developed to make the cloning of pigs possible. Why work with pigs? The organs of a pig are closest in size to those of humans. Biogenetic engineering enables scientists to remove a gene that would cause the initial rejection of an organ, thus bypassing the first major hurdle to transplantation. They can also add genes that would slow the long-term rejection of the transplanted organ. The genetically altered pig could be cloned and reproduced as often as desired. Voilà-an "organ factory" is created. The first cloned piglets were born in March, announced the company that created Dolly, the cloned sheep. PPL Therapeutics Inc. has been working on the project for some time and sees the potential for medical use as "huge." Parallel research is ongoing in taking DNA from the patient who needs a new organ, and literally growing a new one. Nuclear transfer is also the basis for these experiments. Most likely the first application will be in creating insulin-producing cells to replace nonfunctioning ones in the pancreas of diabetics. This biotechnology, scientists project, will enable them to grow entire organs, including hearts, muscles, bones and skin. Advanced Cell Technology, a Massachusetts company, has been able to create embryos from cow eggs with the nuclei removed and replaced by human DNA. The cells grow into an embryonic life that produces human embryonic stem cells-the basic building block cells from which all cells grow. The biocommand that will "tell" the stem cells what kind of cell to grow into has not yet been discovered. The ethical questions are great. On the one side are those who see this as tampering with life and on the other side are those who see this as making life possible. Researcher Michael West, who works for Advanced Cell Technology, says that since they work with embryos that are less than 14 days old, "There is no human entity there." That's difficult to accept, when you believe as the UCGIA does, that life begins at conception. ("First Cloned Piglet Birth Near," UPI, Feb. 16, 2000; "Scientists Optimistic About Sheep Cloning Implications," UPI, Sept. 27, 1999.)
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John Ross Schroeder

John died on March 8, 2014, in Oxford, England, four days after suffering cardiac arrest while returning home from a press event in London. John was 77 and still going strong.

Some of John's work for The Good News appeared under his byline, but much didn't. He wrote more than a thousand articles over the years, but also wrote the Questions and Answers section of the magazine, compiled our Letters From Our Readers, and wrote many of the items in the Current Events and Trends section. He also contributed greatly to a number of our study guides and Bible Study Course lessons. His writing has touched the lives of literally millions of people over the years.

John traveled widely over the years as an accredited journalist, especially in Europe. His knowledge of European and Middle East history added a great deal to his articles on history and Bible prophecy.

In his later years he also pastored congregations in Northern Ireland and East Sussex, and that experience added another dimension to his writing. He and his wife Jan were an effective team in our British Isles office near their home.

John was a humble servant who dedicated his life to sharing the gospel—the good news—of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God to all the world, and his work was known to readers in nearly every country of the world. 

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Darris McNeely

Darris McNeely works at the United Church of God home office in Cincinnati, Ohio. He and his wife, Debbie, have served in the ministry for more than 43 years. They have two sons, who are both married, and four grandchildren. Darris is the Associate Media Producer for the Church. He also is a resident faculty member at the Ambassador Bible Center teaching Acts, Fundamentals of Belief and World News and Prophecy. He enjoys hunting, travel and reading and spending time with his grandchildren.

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