- Our relationship with animals
is really, really complicated.
Some animals we keep as pets and companions,
and some we eat.
Some try to eat us.
We drink their bodily fluids.
We mix their bodily fluids with bacteria
and then let it ferment.
Then, we eat it with their meat
or their reproductive cells.
We grind up their bones and put it into lipstick and makeup.
We use their skin for our hats and jackets and shoes
and bondage gear and sporting goods and fancy chairs.
And of course we mix our cells into their embryos
to create chimeras that will grow
new human body parts for transplantation.
That last one?
That last one's new.
This is On the Fringe, a show about weird ideas
that just might change the world.
(upbeat electronic music)
Whether you realize it or not,
we're in the middle of a medical crisis.
In the U.S. today, roughly 115,000 people
are waiting for an organ transplant.
22 people die every day waiting
for an organ that never comes.
But these are just numbers.
Let's talk about a person.
(slide carousel clicking)
- When I was 14, my parents took me to a physician,
a specialist, and he says, "The chances are
"that people with the disease you have
"are gonna have a very short life."
Crohn's Disease patients generally tend to live
until they're 20 or 21 at the best.
He suggested that if there's anything
I wanted to do in my life,
I better get it done as quick as possible.
- This is my dad.
He is not 20 or 21, in case you're wondering.
And that would be weird, even for this show.
His life has been extended time after time
as medical technology has continued to improve.
About 4 1/2 years ago, though,
it looked like time was running out.
Dad had been on the kidney transplant list
for several years, and one day,
he finally accepted that he might never get one.
- I don't think I felt I was gonna survive much longer.
Well, it wasn't 10 minutes later we got a phone call
askin' us to come to a transplant center,
and I received from that center
a very good kidney of a perfect match.
- And now, there's a good chance
that Dad might need another kidney.
And we're all asking ourselves if he can last
another five years on a waiting list
when the previous wait almost killed him.
- We believe that the pig is a perfect model
to solve the human organ shortage problem.
(audio tape stopping)
- Hey, lady, I'm trying to talk about my dad.
What does this have to do with pigs?
(audio tape speeding up)
- If 22 people are waiting every day
for an organ transplant, and we have the ability
to use the pig to grow human cells, tissues, and organs,
why wouldn't we give the gift of life
to people that are waiting in need?
- Oh, well, next time lead with that.
This is Tammy Lee Stanoch, the CEO of Recombinetics.
Tammy and the other folks here
are working to develop a way to grow transplant organs
for humans in genetically modified pigs,
naturally or unnaturally.
Not these pigs; these pigs are
just delicious breakfast pigs.
These are the genetically modified life-saving pigs.
And one day soon, pigs like these
will have their genome altered
and human stem cells inserted into their embryos
to create what's know as a chimera.
- Chimera. - Chimera.
- Chimera. - Chimera?
This is Adrienne Watson.
She's a scientist.
- I'm the Senior Director of Preclinical Development
here at Recombinetics.
- Like I said, scientist.
- When we talk about chimeras,
we're talking about an organism that's got cells
from two different types of organisms.
So our pig chimeras, for example,
are mainly composed of pig cells,
but the organ of interest would be composed of human cells.
That's called a chimera.
- Okay then, chimera.
- Ultimate, we'd like to grow whole organs:
livers, kidneys, hearts, corneas.
- This is Mitchell Abrahamsen,
Chief Commercial and Scientific Officer at Recombinetics.
- By providing a alternative method
or alternative approach for generating
these human tissues, cells, and products today,
we really do open the door to some solutions
that currently don't exist due to
limited supply of available human tissues.
- We already have the ability to grow human cells,
including blood tissues.
We can grow hepatocytes, which are liver cells,
pancreatic cells to cure diabetes
or to prevent or delay diabetes.
- The first step to creating these chimeras
that are definitely not man-pigs.
- Not a man-pig, chimera.
- I get it, chimera. - Yup.
- Is to take an embryo and knock out
the genes that would normally grow
the organ you're looking to replace.
Say, a liver.
Get outta here, liver genes.
(man screaming) (whip cracking)
- That embryo is then injected with human cells,
and those human cells then fill
the niche where the pig cells can't.
So, if the pig embryo is knocked out
for a gene necessary for the liver to develop,
now the human cells will go in
and actually develop the liver in the pig.
- Boom, you got a liver.
A liver made out of human cells with your DNA.
A perfect transplant organ made just for you
that won't require you to take a lifetime
of antirejection and immunosuppressant medications.
- The idea of growing a human organ in a pig
is somethin' that probably catches people off guard.
But if you're one of those people that need a heart
or if you've got a child who needs
a liver transplant or a pancreas,
if you've got a child who's got some really serious disease,
you're looking for solutions.
- These pigs are superheroes
because they're saving human lives.
- Let's not be too terribly glib about this.
There's a ton of ethical questions that arise
from this idea of mixing our cells with animals.
We're toying around at the fuzzy edges
of what actually separates us
from the animals we've gotten so creative in utilizing.
But we will do it.
- If I was offered an opportunity
to have a transplant in five or six months
and it came from a transplant animal, I'd be fine with that.
I would greet that eagerly.
(angelic instrumental music)
- The need for transplant organs is too great to ignore,
and it will only get greater.
And if the idea of harvesting organs
from animals is disturbing to you,
just keep in mind where we get them now.
People.
We harvest them from people,
just in case that wasn't super clear.
(upbeat electronic music)