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by shiroiushi 681 days ago
That would be nice, and for other things too, but wouldn't it theoretically be simpler to grow cloned organs and other body parts and surgically replace your old ones with those? (Obviously, there's real technological hurdles to growing cloned organs, but these seem somewhat easier than the hurdles for reprogramming your cells.)
3 comments
sharpshadow 680 days ago
I was thinking about it. It looks like sperm from PSCs is a thing[1] so might be ovums. That means you can clone yourself from yourself. It’s even more intense if the statement that stem cells start to combine themselves autonomously and make embryo is true.[2]

I’ve heard that it is possible to let grow one type of animal inside another’s animal womb is that true, any sources?

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29717842/

2. https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/05/06/1092055/scientis...

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rob74 681 days ago
Might be difficult for the brain, and a very significant amount of the elderly have brain problems (Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia)...
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adrianN 681 days ago
It seems difficult to replace bones, cartilage, muscles and skin.
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shiroiushi 681 days ago
How so? Surgeons do it all the time. You've heard of skin grafts, right? You can remove patches of skin and replace them with other patches of skin from the same person and it'll work fine, aside from scarring at the sutures of course. A common problem is not having enough skin to work with of course (it's not like people have lots of spare skin), but if someone got severe burns for instance and we could grow cloned skin for them to implant, that's far preferable to current techniques.

Of course, replacing anything has issues with 1) the trauma of surgery itself, and 2) scarring where things are cut and spliced, but this is better than not replacing things at all and just dying or getting an amputation or whatever. Of course, if you could just get an injection that programs your body to fix these things itself, that's better, but my whole point is that it seems to me that growing cloned organs is closer to our current technological capability.

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