• Question: Hello, this is Harshita. The question that I want to ask you is: if you could transplant cells from donor body to the patient body so can you use that same method to transplant body parts easily or would it be harder in your opinion?

    Asked by anon-249767 to Katrina on 24 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Katrina Wesencraft

      Katrina Wesencraft answered on 24 Mar 2020:

      The procedure I research is called a pancreatic islet transplant, it’s an experimental treatment for type 1 diabetes. In type 1 diabetes, the cells in your pancreas that make insulin (the islets) stop working. Only about 1-2% of the pancreas is islet cells. So we take the donor pancreas and mash it up with enzymes to get the islets out – the patient doesn’t need the other 98-99% of the pancreas to be transplanted. My research looks at how we could trap the cells in bubbles made from alginate (a polymer that’s found in seaweed). These bubbles are really tiny (200 micrometres which is about the width of a human hair!). I’ve never heard of people doing research using this technique for anything other that cells, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. But most people that need an organ transplant need the whole organ.

Comments

  • Photo: Sophie

    Sophie commented on :

    I would like to add here that the people who need organ transplants is much higher than organ donors right now so scientists are trying to find new ways to try and construct organs that could be transplanted to help with this problem. Some researchers are looking to use stem cells for this, but the tricky thing is making a bunch of cells become a fully formed organ in the lab. There have even been studies where pigs have been used to try and grow the organs that could be used for humans. There would obviously be a lot of preparation steps before any organ like that would be transplanted into a human. It wouldn’t go straight between. But they are some other ways people are looking into organ transplants