Go Ahead; Break My Heart! I Can Always Get A New One!

Aah....at last the final blog! It's been fun - not really - but yeah here it goes. Assess how societal needs (i.e. the need for healthy foods; active lifestyles) lead to scientific and technological developments related to internal systems.

With its mixture of science and social service, medicine is particularly sensitive to the needs of society just as medical and technological advancement greatly impact society. Science increases the understanding of our internal body systems and the related biological problems. How this understanding is applied however, is therefore a concern of both medical technicians and society. Since the dawn of time the longevity of the human life has fascinated and befuddled the human race. Upon further exploration, we discovered the number one threat to human longevity was the malfunction and or failure of the very organs and body systems that sustain us. Thus we begun the exploration of ways to fulfill this societal need; ways to either stop organs from failing or fix/replace them when they do. Billions of surgeries later we arrive at the concept of transplantation.

An organ transplant is a surgical operation in which a failing or damaged organ in the body is removed and replaced with a functioning one. The donated organ can be taken from a deceased person, a living person and now even animals! Xenotransplantation is the transfer of living cells, tissues and/or organs from one species to another. Medical science already uses various animal parts for various therapeutic reasons such as the replacement of human heart valves with ones found in pig hearts. Currently there are a whole bunch of organs that are being mechanically engineered for the human body. Some of them are shown below.

Heart

Currently internal mechanical hearts such as the AbioCor (shown above) are only used as temporary solutions as they have a tendency to form stroke-inducing blood clots. The race is on however for a permanently implantable heart and French transplant specialist Alain Carpenter says his model will be ready for clinical trials as soon as next year and actual use as heart transplants as soon as 2013 - assuming we all survive 2012.

Lungs

Extrocoporeal Membrane Oxygenation is the technique for providing life support in the case that the natural lungs are failing and are not able to sufficiently oxygenate the body's organ systems. Today the closes we've gotten to the artificial lung is the heart lung machine used as patients recover from infections and trauma. However, the Mc3 BioLung is a device that uses the heart's pumping power to move blood through its filters. It works alongside a natural lung to exchange the oxygen in the air with carbon dioxide in the blood. So far it's only been tried on sheep but human trials are expected in the next few years. Check out this site for more info on the BioLung: http://www.mc3corp.com/case_studies/artificial_lung_bio/.

Hand

Today we've come a long way from the days of Captain Hook. Using something called myoelectric linking, prosthetic limbs can now pick up electrical impulses from muscle fibres in the arms and transmit them to fingers and thumbs. The i-Limb , is an $ 18,000 with articulating fingers and thumbs, each with their own motors. Currently in the works is the SmartHand (top right). The SmartHand would be a bio-adaptive hand that could actually feel using 40 sensors that would communicate back and forth with the brain using nerve endings in the arm.

Extrapolation
The possibilities of transplantation are endless as companies are currently ELADs (Extracorpeal Liver Assist Devices) and artificial retinas such as the Argus II Retinal Prosthesis that could actually cause the blind to see. It is important to acknowledge that the development of these devices would not be made possible without the societal need for donor organs. However, it's important to extrapolate these needs and see logical conclusions to be arrived at should these needs increase. To do this, we'll examine this scene from the recent movie Repo Men. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msswu92NflE&NR=1 . The movie Repo Men reminds us of the old saying that while regular people go to church to pray for good health, doctors pray for the sickness of others. Illness is in fact a business.

As social needs in the fields of medicine and technology increase so will the costs associated with the development, production and purchase of these new gadgets. As the ability to increase the ability to prolong people's lives increases, so will the amount of occurrences where a monetary value is placed on the lives of people. Repo Men transports us to a not too distant future - in the year 2025 - where an organization called The Union has perfected the creation of artificial organs, which have replaced organ transplants. A potential customer can apply for an organ, which is sold on credit with a high interest rate attached. If the customer is unable to make payments, a Repo Man is sent after the customer to reclaim their property. This process is usually brutal and often results in the death of the individual.

A recent study on the costs of kidney treatments showed that the average cost of kidney dialysis for one year in the United States is about $44,000! Furthermore, the average cost of a kidney transplant and medical care for the first year after surgery is $ 89, 939. With the size of these costs, we can see that we are not too far from the future depicted in Repo Men. With the United States Congress refusing to convert to a Universal Health Care system, we will find people unable to pay for their transplanted organs should they be able to be artificially generated. The collection of monies and assets to repay the parties involved would essentially leaving the patient bankrupt giving them life but not livelihood. If the organs were to be repossessed, we would find the ethical implications and resultant litigation to create quagmires of epic proportions similar to the situation of Shylock and Antonio in Shakespeare's comedy The Merchant of Venice. Companies trying to get their pounds of flesh would have to get them without shedding blood or extracting any parts of the body that aren't theirs. They'd also have to store and keep alive diseased organs until a patient is unable to pay or pays in full. The entire situation just seems like a bad hyperbole.

Conclusion

To conclude this blog, I will first acknowledge the technological developments in the fields of transplantation that are accredited to the societal need to preserve one's life and the lives of others. It is however important to acknowledge that increases in these needs and the quality of how they are fulfilled cause increases in cost. The rudimentary goal of medical technological advancement is and always should be to ensure the survival of the human race. As the price of medical care increases, society should never be tempted to put a price on the life of human beings as this will only lead to the downfall of society. One should never be tempted to see the cost of preserving a human life as too high as this will lead to the downfall of the human being. It is important to remember that there is art to the practice of medicine as well as science and technologies, and that the warmth, sympathy, and understanding of the human being will always outweigh the surgeon's knife, the chemist's drug, and the creditor's paycheck.

Artificial Selection: Survival of the fittest

"Preface: Artificial selection has resulted in plants that are more disease-resistant, cows that produce more milk, and racehorses that run faster. One must wonder what will come next. In the blog entry answer the following question - under what circumstances should humans be artificially selecting plants or animals, if any?"

Before discussing the rather hefty subject at hand, I believe it is important to know exactly what artificial selection and it's antithesis, natural selection are. I'll try to do this with unique examples and limited use of phrases like survival of the fittest and playing God so please bare with me.

Natural selection is the process by which traits that make it more likely for an organism to survive and successfully reproduce become more common in a population over time. Natural selection acts on the phenotype - observable traits - of an organism. The natural genetic variation with a population ensures that members with less favorable observable traits are weeded out due to predation or failure to reproduce. In this sense, it seems like natural selection is more like survival of the prettiest, rather than fittest. However, since natural selection ensures that the genetic material of a phenotype that gives a reproductive advantage becomes more common in a population, it's important to note that there are certain traits obtained through the process of natural selection that enable a species' survival.


Artificial selection is the selective breeding of certain traits over others. In artificial selection, humans intentionally or unintentionally control which members of a population reproduce or how many offspring they produce, thereby changing the distribution of traits in the population. In artificial selection, it really seems like survival of the fittest really comes into play. Survival of those fittest to amuse, benefit or be eaten by humankind. In writing this bioblog, I found it difficult to find an analogy that would make the above topics easier to understand so I decided to procrastinate and watch tv in true Mary Ward fashion. It was then I stumbled upon an episode of an old tv show, that would become the topic analogy of my bioblog.

Part 1 - You only need to watch part 2, but the entire episode's really funny. There are five parts on Youtube.

Why is artificial selection so common in today's world?

The simple answer: BECAUSE IT'S WORTH IT! The first five minutes of the video is made up of Sam, Carmen and Lily giving reasons for them to dye their hair blond. I found this video very appropriate when speaking of the topic because artificial selection broken down simply is the intentional reproduction of individuals within a population that have desirable traits. Though the girls in this case didn't reproduce with one another, they are altering the traits of their school population to reach a desired outcome and gain a specific advantage. In this case "better grades, boyfriends.....she gets more meat" are metaphors for reasons humans choose artificial selection: profit and fitness for sexual reproduction.

Profit - Many of the foods we eat today are the result of artificial selection. It takes millenia for evolution to produce the results humans desire, so every so often we find the need to speed the process up. Such an example is found in the selective breeding of chickens. Today's chickens are bred to grow larger faster and produce more eggs. This makes it easier to turn a profit selling eggs or the chickens themselves as food products.

Sexual reproduction - Sometimes humans breed animals simply for their reproductive capabilities or their ability to create hybrids. Examples of this are thoroughbred horses and dogs; people actually pay money to have someone else's dog/horse mate with their own animal to create offspring possessing the traits they desire. The creation of thoroughbreds is usually achieved through a hybridization process known as backcrossing between filial generations. Basically it involves crossing offspring generations with parent generations to eventually achieve homozygosity.

Among these reasons for natural selection, one more important one must be brought to light by an even more important fact. Motivation for artificial selection is directly tied to our motivation to greater understand genetics. Many of the advancements in genetic fields have been as a result of artificial selection. Take for example Gregor Mendel and his experiments with the pea plants or Adam Nash - the first "designer baby" - and how he was selected to ensure he had the traits necessary to save his sister who had a bone marrow deficiency. Artificial selection continues to be the social norm because we continue trying to understand the nature of genetic inheritance.

What are the downsides to artificial selection?

In the video above, we are shown what happens when artificial selection produces an outcome that is undesirable from the human perspective. The result - "hair the color of dung" - is known to human beings as negative selection. The video displays negative selection as a result of human error which frequently happens when crops are managed poorly like when humans eat the best cows resultingtly degrading the quality of the cows in following filial generations. However, with artificial selection, a variety of traits may cause multiple health issues among animals.

Canine Hip Dysplasia, is the example given in the unit guide for a detrimental trait. It is a malformation of the hip joint that hinders a dog's ability to move and eventually damages the cartilage to the point of the dog's full immobility or the point where they need a walking aid. This trait is usually gained by means of genetic inheritance and is commonly found amongst German Shepards, Retrievers, and other above average sized dogs. Under regular circumstances, natural selection would have erased this gene entirely. However, due to selective breeding and breeding practices, it remains within the canine gene pool.

The other examples I talked about in my blog also have their corresponding negative effects. Though chickens produce more eggs as well as bear more meat, they also experience a number of corresponding health issues. Chickens that lay eggs usually suffer from calcium deficiencies that make their bones brittle. Those bred for size eventually become so big with excess meat that their legs cannot support their weight. Both usually result in the chickens being in severe pain as well as unable to walk. With backcross-breeding, it has been found that the breeding of members of a population so closely related could result in the sterility of the offspring. Furthermore, when cows are bred for traits that allow them to produce more mile, they frequently suffer from increased infections and fertility problems.

Conclusion

The topic of artificial selection is such a different one to discuss because of its negative and positive outcomes. On one end of the spectrum it improves the quality of human life by making possible genetic outcomes that would otherwise be nonexistent. On the other end of things, we find that by selectively breeding animals for our benefit, not only do we put their health at risk, but we decrease the biodiversity of their population which could in turn prove to be disastrous later on.

I recognize that my opinion on the topic will be biased because of my personal preferences. I will always love to eat corn, carrots, rice,bread and all other foods that are products of artificial selection therefore I encourage it. However I believe in the practice of artificial selection insofar as it does not jeopardize the health of the animals themselves or cause them any pain. I believe in the use of artificial selection under one additional circumstance: that it be used to ensure the survival of a species of animal such as in the case of the Sanga breed of cattle in Africa which is tolerant to the trypanosomes transmitted by the tse-tse fly that cause nagana disease.

The episode of Popular I included helped me to understand certain aspects of artificial selection we usually don't consider. The most important section of part two was the scene where Exquisite was asked if she wanted to go out with Josh. Though by the laws of natural selection, Josh should have been the obvious choice, sometimes we find laws to be broken. Sometimes random unexpected events occur which make animals with "undesirable" traits more favorable. In the circumstance we find the extinction of animals with desirable trait to mean that of an entire species. Under no instance is this tolerable. Therefore the question of under what circumstances the artificial selection of organisms is allowed is one of whether our roles as stewards of the world should always supersede the role we play as the world's inhabitants.