Patricia Picnini The Young Family Analysis

1142 Words3 Pages

In 2002 Patricia Piccinini’s sculpture, “The Young Family”, of a mother creature, human-animal crossbreed, with her three babies was exhibited. In a description of her work, Patricia Piccinini said, “I take it for granted that technology will continue to advance.” At the time, scientists had just started focusing more on how animals can be used for organ donation. Fifteen years later, an actual pig embryo was injected with human stem cells and successfully grew a heart made up of human cells. Before this paper was assigned, I didn’t realized how often artists use their work to bring discussion to scientific issues. Art can be used to bring awareness and understanding to any scientific topic. Piccinini hoped “The Young family” would encourage …show more content…

“Every ten minutes a person is added to the national waiting list for organ transplants. And every day 22 people on the list die without the organ they need” (Erin Blakemore, National Geographic). This is why the technology to grow new organs is so important. Human-animal chimeras could grow organs to be transplanted into humans. The donor pool for essential organs is extremely small, and there aren’t any other alternatives developing quick enough to save lives. In addition to growing organs in other animals for transplant, developing further chimera technology increases the possibility of long term cures for diseases and other conditions. A stem-cell biologist who worked at the University of Tokyo and Stanford created rat-mouse chimeras that cured diabetes in mice. The rat embryos were altered so they wouldn’t grow their own pancreases and the mouse stem cells developed pancreases that were almost entirely mouse cells. The scientists then transplanted tiny clusters of pancreatic cells from the rat-mouse chimeras into diabetic mice. The diabetic mice had normal glucose levels for a year. This medical technology can be developed for humans and has the potential to help millions of people with diseases and other conditions. A good friend of mine from high school has diabetes. From personally experiencing her struggle with diabetes, I can say the possibility of a long-term diabetes cure comparable to the rat-mouse chimeras would definitely be life changing for her and many other people struggling with

Open Document