A few months back, the world’s first Heart Transplant involving a genetically modified pig heart was successfully done in the United States. The patient, who was of advanced age volunteered to be Patient Zero for the historic and controversial transplant surgery.
The patient would not have been eligible for a human organ transplant due to their age and their health issues. The surgery was successful and the patient lived for almost two months before dying anyway from unrelated but known health issues which was expected. This transplant was done basically to ascertain weather this kind of transplant surgery is a viable option and now the world knows that it is.
What they did was they genetically modified a pig embryo with the human DNA and human stem cells before putting it into a surrogate female pig for gestation. The resulting pig-human chimera is then born with organs compatible with humans and could then be transplanted into humans. A pig pregnancy is about 4 months and is usually a litter. What this means is you could have a litter of pigs with human organs born that could then be used to help a lot of people at once.
Do you know what the most needed organ worldwide is? The Kidney. Right now, almost 2 million people worldwide are on dialysis and almost a third of them–a little under 600,000–are in the United States. Like I mentioned in the previous blog post, organs don’t last very long once removed from the donor’s body. Kidneys actually last the longest with a lifespan of 24 to 48 hours once removed from the donor’s body. The Heart and Lungs have the shortest window with 4 to 6 hours max on average in comparison.
By now you’re probably thinking “People can live with one kidney. Why don’t more people just donate one of theirs?” The problem–and this is also the reason I made the decision to take my name off the donor registry almost 10 years ago–is what if you have health issues yourself that may not make organ donation a viable option even if it’s done after you die? That’s the case with my heart, lungs and kidneys in particular. I once had kidney failure as a kid and I was born with a heart condition. I also have asthma which means I can’t donate any of those organs even if it’s after I’ve died but I digress.
All that said. From what I was able to find online, priority consideration for Animal to Human transplants would mostly be for those who are terminally ill and would die within 12 to 18 months otherwise. Obviously, that’s just for right now. That would presumably be upscaled over time.
Oh and for those who don’t like the idea of genetically modified pig organs being transplanted into you, the same tech is being used with Sheep for those who may have cultural and religious aversions to accepting pig organs. It didn’t take long for animal rights groups like the Humane Society and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) to voice strong opposition to this new tech saying it’s not right and soforth and so on.
Speaking of “playing God”. That brings me to Head Transplants.
Here’s the full video by Brain Bridge and fair warning, some may find it disturbing to watch:
Are you thoroughly freaked out yet? Well you’ll be relieved to know that this is 100% conceptual as of now. Dr. Hashem Al-Ghaili, who also concepualized an AI-powered Artificial Womb Factory called EctoLife–more on that in a bit–is behind this ultra sci-fi concept.
To be clear: His projected 8-year window from performing the world’s first Head Transplant is 100% aspirational. As of now, there is no Patient Zero and no surgeries have been publicly announced. It does sound like this is deep in the R&D Phase which is the biggest reason he made the video: To recruit scientists and doctors for Brain Bridge.
That goes back to the big second question that I mentioned in the previous blog post: Should we trying to do this?
The ethical and moral issues are one thing let alone the theortical medical science techniques the video leans hard into. Let’s get into that:
- Based on what I could piece together, the entire surgery would likely take at least 4 to 8 hours. The pre-op phase involves putting both the recepient’s body and the donor body under unaesthetic. Once they are completely under, a traecheotomy is performed on both bodies to keep them alive during and after the head separation phase. Let’s assume both are done within an hour total. After that, both bodies’ core body temperatures are lowered via IV ahead of the separation phase. Let’s assume that takes 2 to 3 hours. Both bodies are then positioned before the A.I.-powered robots and we’re now at the point of no return for the recipient. Let’s assume the Head Separation Phase takes 20 minutes, draining all the blood from the recipient’s head takes another 20 minutes and attaching it to the donor body takes another 20 minutes for an hour in total. We’re now at 3 hours total. After attaching the recepient’s head to the donor’s body, the video shows a face transplant is done. The donor’s jaw, facial tissue and facial muscles excluding the tongue are swapped with the recepient’s. Let’s assume that takes another hour for a total of four hours. I get why you’d want to do the Face Transplant after grafting the recipient’s head to the donor’s body while it’s still viable but to me, that should be a separate surgery. Let’s assume the Face Transplant surgery adds another 3 to 4 hours. Currently, Full Face Transplant Surgery takes 10 to 30 hours to perform and is usually spread out over a time for that reason. I can see A.I. Robots doing it in 3 to 4 hours though.
- After the surgery is completed, the patient is placed in a medically induced coma for the next 4 to 5 weeks to allow patient’s newly merged head and body to heal from the surgery without moving as well as allow the patient’s brain to sync with their new body. An A.I. microchip implanted into the spinal cord of the donor’s body acts as a secondary conduit to help the recipient’s brain quickly establish neural pathways and connections with its new body ahead of the patient eventually being brought out of the medically induced coma.
- After the initial 4 to 5 week comatose phase has ended, the patient begins intensive physical therapy to learn to use their new body. I caught the Neurolink technology currently being used by someone get mentioned and that is not fiction. A man who became paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident had a microchip implanted into his brain that allows him to use technology with thought alone. The hope is once this technology is scaled up, a second chip could be implanted into his spine. That would then grant him the use of his arms and legs once again. Brain Bridge is clearly assuming that tech will have advanced enough to make this part of their road map possible.
- In addition to intense physical therapy, the patient would also undergo psychiatric care to help them come to terms with the life-changing procedure they went through and adjust to their new identity. That’s a given but I would hope the patient would also be required to undergo a psychiatric evaluation BEFORE the procedure is greenlit. The patient needs to be made to understand the moment their head is separated from their body, they are legally dead by decapitation. Yes the machines will work quickly to attach the patient’s head to the donor’s body within an hour’s time but during that one hour, they are clinically dead. At the very least they should settle their affairs and draw up a will in the event something goes wrong either during the procedure or during post-op recovery. Like any transplant surgery, you’re taking immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of your life to keep the native body’s white blood cells from attacking the transplanted tissue (more commonly knowing as Rejection) which is rightfully perceives as a foreign organism.
All that said, let’s back up a bit to the parts that I know everyone is probably thinking: Who would willingly agree to allow their brain dead loved one’s body to be used for this kind of surgery (and will they get it back when the recipient dies?)? What happens to the recipient’s body after the procedure is done (Are the organs harvested for organ donation if they’re usable?)?
Most importantly: Who is held liable or legally responsible if things don’t go as intended? What happens if the patient dies during or after the procedure is completed? What if the patient doesn’t come out of the medically-induced coma? What if the patient’s brain is unable to sync with their new body and is thus in prettymuch the same or worse condition than they were before the surgery (sweet irony)?
On that note.
The price tag for this procedure is “tenatively” set at $13 Million. Mind you, there isn’t even a guarantee the patient actually survives the surgery. I’m also going to assume Brain Bridge makes the patient and their family sign legal paperwork stipulating they agree not to sue them if something goes wrong or the patient dies.
…I assume insurance would not be willing to cover any of that either.
That brings me to Dr. Hashem Al-Ghaili’s other more imfamous concept:
…Are you thoroughly freaked out again yet? Well, you’ll be happy to know that such a device does not actually exist AND is not currently in development.
It IS true that researchers have successfully created and tested an artificial womb with sheep embryos between 2015 and 2019 in the UK and U.S. What they did was they surgically removed a sheep fetus from a pregnant sheep and put it in the artificial womb. The device sustained the sheep fetus for the rest of its gestation and it was born alive.
The hope with the artificial womb is that it could be used in premature births to help finish a premature baby’s gestation in a more sterile environment. In a sterile environment much closer to a human womb than existing incubators, a premaure baby could finish its gestation period without worry of infection or the outside environment.
As for EctoLife Factories, the potential for misuse is made plain in the video and that’s aside from the obvious genetic editing components. I mean the idea of mass producing people like that. Imagine someone or a country willing to commit 20 to 30 years creating an army of genetically powerful people. I mean a literal army. There’s already a lot of conspiracy theories involving IVF (InVitro Fertilization) out there as it is. Imagine someone creating a few hundred-thousand people using this tech just to harvest their organs.
This is why ethical and moral guard rails need to be in place. It’s also why researchers pivoted hard away from human cloning and ended up making breakthroughs with Stem Cells. That was considered more ethically acceptible because it did not involve embryos and instead involved studying the placenta and blood from umbilical cords after birth but I digress.
The EctoLife factories would be powered with Nuclear Fusion and you would apparently also have the option of bringing one into your home. I’m not sure how exactly that would work given the world’s first Nuclear Fusion test happened just two years ago. Nuclear Fusion generators don’t exist yet and a working prototype is expected to be 8 to 15 years away (barring a breakthrough of course).
Tech like this absolutely needs to be HEAVILY regulated BEFORE it’s made commercially available to the public. Aside from the example I mentioned above around creating people just to harvest their organs, another issue when combined with IVF are genetic siblings. Genetic diversity helps protect populations–and future generations–from certain genetic and heredetary diseases and ailments. There are limits to how much genetic editing can “fix” and genetic siblings is one of them.
One aspect of of that video that I found disturbing is basically, EctoLife wants to eventually make pregnancy socially unacceptable. That’s literally population control. We’ve seen what that looks like in Science Fiction enough times in recent decades to know how bad an idea it is to turn human reproduction over to machines. The video markets the idea as “more convenient than pregnancy” but it would be all about making pregnancy socially unacceptible: “Why would you choose to go through a pregnancy where anything could happen to you or the baby when you can just use an artificial womb that will remove most of the risks and all the pain?” It’s not hard to see where that could quickly lead to but at the risk of this veering too hard into conspiracy theories, I’ll stop there.
Last but certainly not least, let’s get to artificial organs.
The two biggest benefits to getting artificial organ implants are you don’t have to worry about the body rejecting them and more importantly, they’ll likely last for the rest of your life.
The world’s first artificial heart transplant took place about 6 years ago. The patient, who was experiencing kidney failure as well as heart failure was deemed too sick to receive a donor heart at the time. He volunteered to be Patient Zero for the world’s first artificial heart transplant. He is still alive now but is in hospice care since he’s also on dialysis.
Aside from no longer having a heartbeat, he does carry a small duffel bag doctors use to monitor the mechanical heart. So far, there’s been no serious issues 6 years later and at least 4 other people have since volunteered to receive an artificial heart. Researchers are working to redesign and miniturize it for future patients since so far all who’ve received one are in hospice care because they’re all seniors with serious health issues.
Researchers are hoping to start doing the surgery on younger patients soon to help many of those currently waiting for a donor heart. Ever since the first successful heart transplant was performed almost 60 years ago, it goes without saying the only way someone can receive a donor heart is if it comes from someone who has just died. It’s still considered a controversial surgery for that reason. You have to walk that balance between trying to save a life and being sensitive to the family of a potential match who declines donating their deceased love one’s organs.
All those issues disappear if artificial organ transplant surgery can be ramped up and upscaled to meet the demand. That’s the goal obviously.
Like I mentioned earlier, the most needed organ is Kidneys. I’ve heard researchers in a few countries are working on developing both artificial kidneys and portable dialysis machines. The hope with developing portable dialysis machines is people would be able to use them in the privacy of their own homes.
For those who don’t know what dialysis machines do–and hopefully you never have to find out–they do what your kidneys do by filtering out impurities and carbon dioxide from your blood. The entire process takes 3 to 5 hours on average, usually depending on the size or height of the patient. You also typically need to go in for dialysis at least three times a week. Blood comes out the body through one tube for cleaning and goes back into the body via a separate tube. Life expectancy on Dialysis in 5 to 10 years but it’s becoming common for people to live up to 30 years on dialysis. This is to say nothing of various health issues common in those who undergo dialysis.
…Take care of your kidneys, ladies and gents!
Moving on. Researchers confirmed about 20 years ago the Liver can and does regenerate when injured or damaged like skin. As long as at least a third of the Liver is healthy, it can handle the work the body needs. What this means is if someone wants to donate liver tissue, doctors will only take up to half from a living donor. The remaining half will grow back to full size within half a year’s time. This is also why the demand for Livers has started to decline in recent decades.
I could go on and on but hopefully by now you learned a lot of stuff. I do think Animal to Human Transplants will be upscaled and utilized case by case. I also think we’ll start to see artificial organ transplants become common in the near future.
As for the Brain Bridge and Ecto Life concepts, they’re 100% fiction and are also 100% conceptional. Like I mentioned before, both videos highlight tech not currently available and probably won’t be available in the near future. I’ll just put it like that.
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