Rescue by the Self and a Fellow Human: Transplantation and Stem Cells

• Published in: Zygon Vol. 60; no. 1; p. 175
• Main Author: Trajković, Katarina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge Open Library of Humanities 20.05.2025
• Subjects: Blood & organ donations; Consent; Heart; Immune system; Kidneys; Lungs; Patients; Public health; Public schools; Science and Orthodoxy around the World; Surgery; Transplants & implants; stem cells; organ transplantation; regenerative medicine; ethical issues
• ISSN: 1467-9744; 0591-2385; 1467-9744
• DOI: 10.16995/zygon.11691

Although tissue regeneration is a common phenomenon in the living world, humans have restricted potential to regenerate their tissues. However, this limitation can be compensated for by various biomedical approaches, including organ transplantation and stem cell technology. Organ transplantation is the replacement of a missing or dysfunctional organ with an organ derived from a (living or deceased) human donor or an animal source, or with an artificial organ. More recently, stem cells—undifferentiated cells that can divide and differentiate into any cell type—have become a novel, highly promising tool of regenerative medicine. Even though both approaches are potentially lifesaving, their application and development are currently limited by a range of medical and ethical issues. This article presents the basic biomedical background of organ transplantation and stem cells technology, discusses the associated ethical concerns, and lists the current strategies for controlling their ethically challenging aspects while allowing exploitation of their benefits.