Organ TransplantationI chose this topic of organ transplantation because it seems to be something that people often don't think about until it affects them personally. Most people do not consider that an organ donation could save a life because a loved one of the patient could not due to incomparable tissue types. People often don't consider organ transplantation to be a last resort for someone. Organ transplantation also sparked my interest when we talked about it in class. Additionally, I started asking myself questions like how do they do this and how do they ensure that the tissue is rejected by the patient. Organ transplantation is something that has changed so much since its inception during ancient history and the growth since then has been enormous. The history of organ donation has grown enormously since its beginnings in the 16th century. It all started with an Italian surgeon, Gasparo Tagliacozzi, known as the father of plastic surgery. Tagliacozzi reconstructed the nose and ears using skin from the patient's arms. When Tagliacozzi used skin from a different donor, he noticed that the procedure often failed. At the time, Tagliacozzi was observing what his successors would call transplant rejection due to unmatched tissue typing. Then, in the early 1900s, European doctors attempted to use animal organs in humans who were dying of renal, a.k.a. kidney, failure. Unfortunately, none of the recipients lasted more than a few days. I believe the negative result of failure was due to the difference between the chemistry of animals and humans. In 1905, the first recorded corneal transplant took place in the middle of a paper... the fact that the organ was grown from the patient's own cells, so it carries no risk of rejection. Once the organ is installed, the scaffolding breaks down and the bladder adapts to its new, but old, home. This lab has already created a bladder and inserted it into a person to see how the body adapts to the organ, what they call phase II. After 5 years, they found that the bladder was functioning perfectly in sync with the patient. This research into laboratory-grown organs began with Dr. Anthony Atala. He and his research team at Wake Forest University Medical Center pioneered the world's first lab-grown bladder, and they remain at the forefront in the field of organ culture. Wake Forest is currently working on 22 types of tissues such as: heart valves, muscle cells, arteries and even fingers. Currently, they are looking for a way to create an artificial pancreas.