Scientific Basis for the Design & Illustration of Design

Scientific Basis for the Design & Illustration of Design

Generic Heart Engineering

To engineer a heart, the pathways to its formation through stem cells must first be discovered through one genome line that is as healthy as possible (i.e. no signs of an genetic disorders, especially related to oncogenes, no family history of heart problems). Then a process could be made to grow a heart in vitro through the use of the right cell signaling, transcription factors and hormones. After this process is perfected, the genome could be screened again for any deleterious mutations that may have formed during this learning process. If any are to be found, then they could be excised through some method involving highly specific endonuclease (restriction factors) so only the specified site is affected. After this phase, the issue of foreign tissue rejection can be dealt with.

The issue that comes up with all transplanted tissues is foreign organ rejection. This problem arises from the body's specific immune system that can recognize "self" from "nonself." It does this through various immune system molecules like antibodies, macrophages, B-cells and T-cells. But each of these "finds" a "nonself" tissue through foreign surface molecules. The most important surface molecule in this process is called a MHC (Major Histocompatibility Complex). These are a sort of "I.D. card" that the immune system recognizes. These are highly variable in humans, so unrelated people usually have compatibility problems in transplants. But this can be changed with a few steps. If the strain of DNA used for developing hearts has its MHC gene or genes culled, then a patient could donate DNA so scientists could find, duplicate and insert the patient's MHC gene or genes. This would then allow scientist to grow hearts with the same specificity as the natural body. This then gives the medical community to simply grow you a heart, no matter who you are.

While this is comprehensible, at this time the process isn't feasible due to lack of knowledge in various areas of science. One of the major obstructions to our proposal is the feeble knowledge of stem cell differentiation. At this time, the process and components of stem cell differentiation are unknown. Also, after this procedure is fully understood, the clinical