X-Message-Number: 8456 From: (Thomas Donaldson) Subject: Re: CryoNet #8450 - #8453 Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 12:29:06 -0700 (PDT) Hi guys! The reference to growing frog organs came from either SCIENCE or NATURE for late May 1997 to the present. I saw it when I was scanning them for material to use in my newsletter (PERIASTRON) which will come out soon. I decided I would not discuss this particular item in PERIASTRON. I will go back and produce a reference for the next message. Frogs and salamanders both have remarkable regeneration powers. One major development in work with repairing human brains has been a swing (based on experiments, of course) toward believing that instead of not have similar powers at all, mammals (and human beings) retain the same powers, but have them blocked by other biochemicals --- which ultimately might be blocked themselves, thus releasing an ability to regrow parts of brains etc. No doubt we'll eventually work out why this blockage evolved, but even so means to control it are likely to prove extremely useful. And naturally this is one of the issues I've been following in PERIASTRON. As for cloning people just to become sources of organs etc, yes, that could certainly happen. No technology exists that cannot be misused. I myself would say that this simply means that we have one more thing for police (and even ourselves) to do... just as we've added them before. Transplantation may even become much easier, with recent drugs and treatments which turn off immune attack on a particular transplant without touching the patient's immune system in other ways. (The drugs now used leave transplant patients with much weaker immune systems than normal). It just might widen the availability of transplants, too -- all the work with antigens (which of course led up to this discovery) won't matter as much as it does now. Our lovely FDA, however, may prevent use of this drug for 6 years or so while it tries to decide whether or not its safe. Long long life, Thomas Donaldson Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8456