Mainstreaming Reproductive Genetic Innovation
Four potential avenues for structuring a societal discourse on reproductive genetic innovation in the U.S.
Organ Transplantation
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Read more: Pig Hearts for Humans and the FDA Pig Hearts for Humans and the FDA
Researchers and clinicians alike see the potential for genetically modified animal organs to serve as a solution to our organ transplant and supply issues.
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Read more: Transplant Genomics: Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Transplant Genomics: Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications
Advances in genetic and genomic studies have identified an increasing number of novel biomarkers of potential use in transplant-related care.
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Read more: COVID-19 and Organ Transplantation COVID-19 and Organ Transplantation
A banner year for organ transplantation in the United States became a tattered memory by April 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
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Read more: Undocumented Organ Transplants Undocumented Organ Transplants
By Brad Segal Manuel—not his real name—was admitted to the hospital with decompensated heart failure. As a child he had scarlet fever which, left untreated, had caused the valves of his heart to calcify and stiffen. Over time, pumping against increased resistance, his heart’s contractions began to weaken until finally, they lost all synchrony and…
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Read more: Chimeras with benefits? Transplants from bioengineered human/pig donors Chimeras with benefits? Transplants from bioengineered human/pig donors
By Brad Segal In January of this year, Cell published a study modestly titled, Interspecies Chimerism with Mammalian Pluripotent Stem Cells. It reports success bioengineering a mostly-pig partly-human embryo. One day before, Nature published a report that scientists had grown (for lack of a better word) a functioning genetically-mouse pancreas within the body of a…
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Read more: Organs and Overdoses (Part II): ‘Higher risk’ donors Organs and Overdoses (Part II): ‘Higher risk’ donors
By Brad Segal In my last post I characterized how overdoses from the surging opioid epidemic have become the fastest-growing cause of mortality among organ donors. In this update, I raise one potential consequence with ethical and policy implications: so-called donor-derived infections. To be clear, I focus primarily on organ recipients as deaths from drug overdose,…
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Read more: Organs and Overdoses: The Numbers (Part I) Organs and Overdoses: The Numbers (Part I)
By Brad Segal The surging opioid epidemic is a threat to the nation’s public health. This year the CDC reported that mortality from drug overdose reached an all-time high, with the annual death toll more than doubling since 2000. Yet in the backdrop of this epidemic, the country also faces ongoing shortages of a different sort–too few…
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Read more: Organ Transplant Malpractice and the “Proximate Cause” Organ Transplant Malpractice and the “Proximate Cause”
By Alex Stein Everyone interested in that area must read Shierts v. University of Minnesota Physicians, — N.W.2d — (Minn.App.2014), 2014 WL 7344014. This important – yet, unreported – decision deals with a medical-malpractice action arising out of the patient’s death from cancer contracted from a donated pancreas. The trial court dismissed the action summarily based…
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Read more: Thinking about brain death Thinking about brain death
By Seema Shah It astonishes me how many people do not realize the controversial nature of “brain death” and the fact that it is not the same as death. There is a substantial body of literature showing that brain death is not the equivalent of death. The President’s Council on Bioethics issued a white paper…