I completed my senior secondary education back in June 2022. Since the 5th grade, I have always had an interest in science. Back then, science was taught as a single subject, and it wasn’t until I reached the 8th grade that it was divided into physics, chemistry, and biology.
I used to get great grades in science when it was taught as a single subject. However, when it split into three subjects, I found it harder to keep up and my grades suffered. In particular, I struggled with physics as it felt too similar to math, which I didn’t enjoy.
Chemistry, on the other hand, was a different story. It required me to memorize so much information that I found it difficult to retain despite investing a lot of time and energy into it. Even sacrificing my sleep didn’t seem to help, as I found myself forgetting the material the next day, and even during exams.
Since its introduction, I have always had a strong dislike for studying both physics and chemistry.
But biology was a different story. I was born loving nature and its incredible creations. I’m from the countryside even though I grew up in a somewhat developed town and my mum always brought us to our home in the countryside every time we had vacation holidays.
I grew up with my sister, my cousin, my mum, and my dad. My father was always away ’cause he worked in the army.
My mum was busy most of the time doing the chores in the household and sometimes she had time to do other stuff like listening to our day at school and once in a while, beating us up for the atrocities that we did or scoring less in exams or fighting with each other for silly reasons (that includes fight for remote, fight for not sharing snacks equally or stealing stationery) and serving us delicious food.
Her cooking is still a fond childhood memory that the three of us cherish.
So, coming back to the actual story, I was intrigued by plants and animals and their growth period. Growing up in the countryside was the one thing that held me interested in living things and their biological cycles.
Biology was the subject in which I scored well and good. I didn’t have to study biology. Every time my mum asked me to study I would unconsciously take up my biology book and start going through it.
Now, talking about XENOTRANSPLANTATION, a normal day during my 11th grade, I was surfing through Google’s home page and accidentally came across the topic of xenotransplantation.
Donno if was fascinated by that enormous word or by the picture that was thumbnailed for that article, but miraculously I not only completed reading the whole article which would have been around 8000 words but also did further research from other websites.
LET’S TALK ABOUT XENOTRANSPLANTATION
Xenotransplantation is any procedure that involves the transplantation, implantation, or infusion into a human recipient of either
- (a) live cells, tissues, or organs from a nonhuman animal source, or
- (b) human body fluids, cells, tissues, or organs that have had ex vivo contact with live nonhuman animal cells, tissues, or organs
The development of xenotransplantation is, in part, driven by the fact that the demand for human organs for clinical transplantation far exceeds the supply.
Currently, ten patients die each day in the United States while on the waiting list to receive lifesaving vital organ transplants.
Moreover, recent evidence has suggested that transplantation of cells and tissues may be therapeutic for certain diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders and diabetes, where, again human materials are not usually available.
Although the potential benefits are considerable, the use of xenotransplantation raises concerns regarding the potential infection of recipients with both recognized and unrecognized infectious agents and the possible subsequent transmission to their close contacts and into the general human population.
Of public health concern is the potential for cross-species infection by retroviruses, which may be latent and lead to disease years after infection.
HOW IT WORKS
Xenotransplantation is a broad term that includes many different treatment methods.
For kidney transplants, the general concept is simple — transfer a working kidney from an animal into a person.
Pigs are the most promising source of animal kidneys. This is because pigs:
- are widely available
- have kidneys that are similar in size to humans
- have a low risk of transferring the disease
The pigs used for this procedure are raised in a laboratory for this purpose.
Their genes are edited to better match human genes. This helps lower the risk of rejection in humans. Rejection is when the body attacks the new organ.
Although nonhuman primates, such as chimpanzees and baboons are also used for xenotransplantation of organs into humans, pigs are the most commonly used animal for xenotransplantation of organs into humans.
This is due to :
Their early sexual maturity (5 months), short gestation periods (3.5 months), large litters (5–10 piglets), and suitable organ size, offer advantages over other animals.
I was tremendously fascinated by the fact that they used animals for organ transplantation.
My friends were equally fascinated too when I told them about it in class the following day.
Have you heard of this sesquipedalian word before?
If you have, how and where did you hear about that term?
Were you excited while acknowledging the word and its meaning like I did?
And what was growing up like to you?
Let me know in the comments.
I’d love to hear from you.
~ Sanju
