Author: Xusheng source: Xusheng (official account ID: lxlong20) has been reprinted with permission
Such information always makes people deep in thought.
The general process is as follows:
One hour after a pig died, scientists slowly injected a special perfusion solution (called organex system) into its body, circulating in its veins and arteries, and fresh oxygen also flows in it.
In the next six hours, scientists soon found that some cells in the heart, liver, kidney and brain of the pig began to recover their functions and activities, and its circulatory system gradually recovered.
Although the pig’s heart has not completely recovered its beat, it can be scanned for electrophysiological activity, indicating that it has contractile capacity.
In each important organ, cells respond strongly to glucose, indicating that they are restarting some metabolism.
During the whole process, people were also surprised to observe that its head and neck began to show involuntary muscle movements.
——This is the so-called pig resurrection.
This is not witchcraft, nor is it a story, but a practical scientific experiment. It was published in the top-level journal Nature on August 3, 2022. The author is the team of the top neurobiologist of Yale University Medical School.
As soon as this information came out, it immediately triggered a huge debate.
In fact, as early as 2019, Yale University scientists proved that even after the blood circulation was stopped for 4 hours, the pig brain could still be “revived”.
At that time, scientists injected a special liquid called brainex system into the brain tissue of pigs to deliver oxygen and nutrients, and successfully restored the functions of some brain tissues of pigs to complete the so-called resurrection. At that time, this experiment caused great controversy.
This year’s experiment is equivalent to an attempt to resurrect organs other than the pig’s brain on the basis of 2019, so it has triggered more intense controversy.
The first dispute is whether animal experiments in vivo are cruel.
In this study, scientists need to anesthetize the pigs used in the experiment, and then induce a heart attack on the anesthetized pigs, so that the pigs “die”.
After the pig dies, the blood will stop circulating, so the blood can not provide nutrients and oxygen for the various cells of the body, and the cells will die.
The blood stopped flowing until death was confirmed, which lasted for one hour; The experimental pigs were then injected with the organoex system.
Generally speaking, people don’t care about the fate of a pig. Whenever social hot issues are involved, there will always be a lot of moral emperors who will stand up and uphold humanity if there is humanity, and uphold the ethics of all kinds of pets if there is no humanity; If even pets are not involved, the “pig track” must be maintained.
Especially when social hot spots involve biological experiments, the “pig way” will also be enthusiastically maintained by many people. Therefore, the “pig road” has become a controversial point.
Second, it challenges the view that cardiogenic death is irreversible.
It is well known that mammalian cells need oxygen and blood to maintain their vitality. Within a few minutes after ischemia, acidosis and edema will occur in the cells, and then irreversible damage will be caused.
Generally speaking, mammalian organs will die completely after 15 minutes of hypoxia. This is regarded as an irreversible process.
However, in this experiment, Sestan’s team injected the organoex system into the pigs after one hour of ischemia and hypoxia, but it succeeded in reactivating multiple organs on the experimental pigs, which was equivalent to directly negating the view that “cardiogenic death is irreversible”, which was “subversive”.
You may wonder what the organoex system injected into experimental pigs this time is and how it has such a magical effect. According to the introduction, organoex system is mainly composed of pig blood, artificial hemoglobin, nutrients required by cells, antioxidant drugs and drugs to prevent cell death.
For example, the oxygen carrying capacity of artificial hemoglobin is very strong. In organex perfusion solution, the ratio of hemoglobin to blood is 1:1, which can improve the efficiency of cells receiving oxygen to the highest level.
For example, antioxidants and other drugs can be used to inhibit and alleviate cell damage.
The most critical part of the experiment is the organex system itself. It is a computer controlled cardiopulmonary bypass perfusion system. During the experiment, real-time sensors will monitor important circulating indicators, metabolites and signal pathways “related to cell repair” so that researchers can intervene at any time.
In addition, this organex system also includes an oxygenator and a hemodialysis device, which can maintain a stable level of electrolytes and other essential molecules in the perfusate.
In short, it is through this magical organex system that the idea of the irreversibility of cardiac death is directly subverted. This impact is extremely huge.
Third, the impact of ethics.
We can imagine that not only the whole mammal can be revived, but also the single organ of the mammal can be revived. The impact on biology and medicine is immeasurable. Because all these technologies will eventually be applied to people.
If the ultimate goal of Sestan’s team’s experiment is to extend the life span of pigs, I’m afraid no one will believe it. With technological breakthroughs, death will be redefined. This involves the biggest controversy, that is, the impact of ethics.
Impact one is a matter of life and death.
Birth, aging, illness and death are natural phenomena. If mankind, as a mammal, can finally be revived, most of the religious, philosophical and cultural systems now need to be demolished and rebuilt. This process will inevitably bring about great turbulence.
Second, the issue of fairness.
The current civilization system has only two characteristics:
First, death is truly fair to all.
Second, nothing other than death can be truly fair.
If the life span of the human body can be greatly increased and even the dead can be revived through the breakthrough of biomedical technology, it will definitely require a large amount of wealth and resources. In that case, the rich and powerful can enjoy huge dividends, while ordinary people can not enjoy dividends because of lack of wealth and resources.
Then the whole civilization system will become, even death is no longer fair in the real sense.
