My thought exactly - I think eventually (re)generation using stem cells will overtake transplants as treatment of choice. And more generally, it’s an interesting race between prosthetic technology and regeneration technology.
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It could be pretty frustrating waiting for the cloned organ to grow to appropriate size, though.
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I wondered about that too, since without the testes to produce testosterone he will be running low.
Why not just disconnect the vas deferens?
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There was that full-face transplant guy in France who started suffering tissue rejection, not because his meds got cut off, but because some antibiotics he took interfered with them unexpectedly. His face started to die, so he ended up living in a clean room under sedation and no face for months waiting for a new donor. Total nightmare.
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I know you’re kidding, but the hospital campus I work on has one of the larger research bioreactors in the country (that thing what you clone cells in bulk in) and I’ve had the opportunity to discuss the ins and outs of 3D printing organs (didn’t discuss penises, because that would probably have been a faux pas).
The biggest problem is that 3D printed organs lack the internal supportive structure needed to keep them intact and able to handle normal human life, as well as handle things like normal blood pressure elevation (which can have systolic spikes to 200-300 mmHg during things like sex or exertion) without blowing out.
There actually is some discussion about trying a hybrid method that’s halfway between 3D printing and sort of spraying the cells onto an absorbable scaffolding kind of like a Chia pet, where you let them grow into place whilst applying various stressors to the growth medium (which would have to include things like using something like a cardiac bypass machine to perfuse the tissue) to get all those microstructure elements to form.
And that… Has more than a couple years to go before we’re really there. There’s still a lot of tech that needs to be developed and iterated before all that comes together into on-demand organ replacements. But when livers and kidneys are doable, then pensises will probably come soon after (pun sort of intended).
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Atypical for humans; but surprisingly common in Marmosets.
It doesn’t answer your question, seems peculiar to sacrifice the endocrine functions over something that a (comparatively) trivial surgical sterilization could mostly address; but I imagine that once you are stuck with an anti-rejection regimen a bit of hormone supplementation counts as safe, mature, and cheap by comparison.
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That sounds like a Jeff Noon character.
Please tell me the procedure ie called an “Addadicktome”?
Problem is getting it the right way up when you are in a hurry. Maybe go for USB-C?
Jeff Noon is like a combination of William Gibson and Peter Watts. Vurt is such an under rated book.
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I’d settle for 3D-printed lymph nodes right now.
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This is my gun
There are many like it
But this one is somebody else’s
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I feel bad for liking you comment.
I’m holding out for a cloned pancreas.
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