Transplants without bioethical dilemmas, with a Greek stamp

Reading the article referring to the awarding of Greek researcher Eleni Antoniadou as Woman of the Year, within the framework of the “FDM everywoman in technology Awards 2013”, one is certainly filled with feelings of joy and national pride. In the current circumstances, it is no small feat for a compatriot of ours to receive such a high distinction, and especially working in such a remarkable field.

The aim of Ms. Antoniadou's research effort is to reduce the waiting time for transplants, by creating artificial organs from biomaterials and stem cells. There is already clinical data for artificial organ transplants namely: trachea, nose, ears, in patients who were in the final stage of cancer (approved by the highest institutional control organizations FDA and European Medicines Agency). The combination of both scientific research on artificial organ technology and the utilization of clinical experience from living and cadaveric transplants has brought about this hopeful and promising future in transplantation, counting among the positives the fact that any ethical-social problems-dilemmas that arise from the classic method of transplantation are overcome.

EThe goal of the whole effort is to have an alternative method, with which someone will not have to wait for years on lists to receive an organ.. Within this climate of optimistic perspective, research into the cloning of organs for transplantation from identical DNA is also developing.  

Reflecting on the history of transplants, I realized that each era, depending on the scientific knowledge, expertise, clinical experience and technology it had, offered its own innovative solutions to the problems that preoccupied human existence.

I cannot ignore the inventive and intelligent intervention with the provocative technique of xenotransplantation, by the Archbishop of Crimea and Simferopol and Professor of Surgery at the Medical School of Tashkent University, Saint Luke Voino-Yasenetsky, when in 1924, for the first time in the history of transplants, the first successful kidney transplant from an animal (calf) was recorded, to a young patient suffering from end-stage renal failure. I remembered the person who put Theology into practice, ministering to man in his dual capacity: as a bishop (physician of souls) and as a surgeon (healer of bodies), offering to the suffering man the gifts of science – which “the Lord gave to men”.

Reactions to every innovative action are to be expected. After all, it is a law of nature that every action brings a reaction. It would be a good thing that such revolutionary techniques were not accompanied by corresponding ethical dilemmas of situations, which is what the regenerative medicine with the technical feasibility of artificial organ transplantation.

However, we cannot ignore and downgrade the successful transplantation techniques that come from the bipolar scheme, living and cadaveric donors. Sources of transplants, from which many of our fellow human beings owe not only their quality of life, but their Existence. This gift of life that is given today by our fellow human beings through science, regenerative medicine “promises” to offer directly to the sufferer.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that transplants “lived” because people learned to give. I hope that the time will soon come when science, having been enriched by clinical, empirical, laboratory and technological knowledge and through laboratory research, will utilize the volume of new data for a future with auspicious predictions in the field of transplants and with achievement techniques that do not create bioethical concerns, such as that of regenerative medicine.