Xenotransplantation Essay

Organ transplantation was, and still remains, one of the most significant medical breakthroughs in recent medical history *Note that differing margins and spacing have been permitted. According to the Cockrell School of Engineering, an average of 20,000 Americans undergo life-saving organ transplants annually; such operations have effectively served to improve the well-being and health of its recipients. However, although the UNOS (The United Network for Organ Sharing) waiting list has the potential to save a large number of lives, twenty patients who fail to receive an organ die daily. The most promising solution to this deficit is xenotransplantation: a process in which live tissues, organs, and cells are transplanted from a donor animal

Many patients wait for years on transplant lists for available organs while neglecting the possibility of risks regarding organ rejection, leading to a false hope of a full and ebullient recovery. Hyperacute rejection can occur as quickly as hours after transplantation, whereas chronic rejection is slower and often takes even years. In both cases, the transplanted organ is subjected to tumultuous assaults by the body’s cells until ultimately being rendered useless, making a waste of the animal’s life while endangering the safety of the human patient as well (Transplant Rejection). There are ways aside from medicine that the body can reject the organ. If proper precautions are not taken, the organ recipients chance psychological rejection of the donor organ, sending their own hormones into a panic. The emotional trauma of living with a pre-existing sickness coupled with the psychological barrier of undergoing surgery can easily send the patient into shock, conceivably leading to multisystem organ failure. When adding in the fact that the new organ was formerly that of an animal, the agitation of the brain causes the immune system to go into hysteria, causing the body to begin attacking the new organ in a struggle to expel the foreign body. Now, the patient has to pay for the undeniably expensive surgical procedure, as well as extensive