Dear Sifu Captain Lokeman,
Thank you very much for your question requesting my opinion
on the video claim on body transplant.
First of all, and straight away I have to tell you I am not
a stem cell or a body transplant expert. I have not studied this area of
medicine or medical sciences before because all these medical-scientific advances
came years after I have already left all my graduate and post-graduate studies.
Whatever I know are just based on other medical sciences
such as anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, cell and molecular biology, and
other branches of biomedical disciplines.
Stem cell transplantation is a recent medical advancement I learn
informally on my own using my understanding in other areas of biomedical sciences
I earned formally.
Hence I am not an
expert in this specific area of medical science to comment on what that video
claimed. So I can only try to answer you.
Actually that video is so unrealistic that it sounds like a
science fiction to me. It is actually
not even worth any answer or comment by any sane scientist. But since you
asked, I feel I need to reply as a matter of courtesy. But I shall only explain briefly.
First of all I could not quite catch what that person in the
video was trying to say. The sound was not very audible on my smart phone, but
I think he was quite confused between stem cell transplantation and surgical
organ transplant such as kidney, heart and liver transplant.
Stem Cells:
First of all, allow me to explain what stem cells are:
Stem cells are a class of cells that are still in their “embryonic”
stage that have not specialized yet. They are undifferentiated cells but are capable
of differentiation into specialized cell types later on.
They are two types. They commonly arise from two main sources:
1.
Embryonic stem cells formed during the
blastocyst phase of embryological growth, and are found in cord blood. These are
present when a foetus develops during
intrauterine life . These cells are still immature and have not differentiated
into specific types of cells for specific organs.
2.
Adult tissue stem cells
Adult or somatic stem cells exist throughout the body after
embryonic development has completed, meaning once the foetus has developed
into an adult. They may be considered as remnants of the original embryonic cells.
These somatic or body cells are found inside different types
of tissues such as in the brain, bone marrow, blood, blood vessels, skeletal
muscles, skin, and the liver.
However, adult stem cells remain inactive and dormant, and
they do not undergo cellular or nuclei division or mitosis. They remain in a non-dividing
state for years until triggered off by some disease or tissue injury, as a
mechanism to repair or to replace damaged ones.
Adult stem cells can undergo mitosis or self-regeneration indefinitely,
empowering them to produce a range of cell types from the patenting organ, and in
theory, even regenerate the entire original organ?
However, It is
generally believed that adult stem cells are limited in their capability of differentiation
based on their tissue of origin although there is some evidence to propose that
they can differentiate to become other cell types.
Both types are normally characterized by their power to potentially
differentiate into different cell types such as skin, muscle, bone, etc.
But there is a limit how far they can differentiate into
other specialized cells and tissue, let alone into a whole organ such as a head
or a complete body. This has never been shown before as far as I know.
Stem Cell Transplantation:
Nevertheless, stem cells has been used as some form of cell
or tissue transplantation or therapy to
replace some non-functioning or diseased organs such as replacing the beta
cells in the islet of Langerhans in the pancreas that are no longer able to
produce insulin in a diabetic patient.
Two Classes of Stem Cell Transplantation:
1.
Auto Transplant
The first category is the autologous transplant or auto
transplant where you get your own stem cells to replace those destroyed by
disease or by drugs such by cytotoxic drugs (chemotherapy) or by radiation to
destroy cancer cells.
The stem cells are grown and harvested in a laboratory and
then injected into the body.
In the case of leukemia, it will normally take about 24
hours for the stem cells to reach the bone marrow where they start to grow and multiply
to produce healthy blood cells again.
This procedure may also apply to other types of stems cells
such as those from the skin, bones, and probably hair too in the event of alopecia
(hair loss). However as far as I know, all stem cells has to be cultured first
in the laboratory before they can be transplanted by injections into the body.
2.
Allogeneic Transplantation
The second type of stem cell transplantation is the allo-transplant
where instead of stem cells harvested from your own body, the recipients get the
stem cells from a donor who is another person.
But such outside our own body stem cell transplantation has
its disadvantage because the donor’s tissues may not match immunologically with
those of the recipients. This may cause rejection due to incompetent antigen
that may cause an antibody rejection – a protein expression
In such cases, umbilical cord blood transplant may be considered
as the other option if a matching donor cannot be found . Normally in cancer
treatment especially in blood cancer, cord blood is harvested
But of course parent-child matching whether due to haplotype
(genetic determinants located on a single chromosome) mismatched or otherwise, transplant
from other donors may also be considered. Parent-to-child match is the closest,
a win-win 50% situation but not an
absolute 100% genetically-immunological match.
Else instead of parent-child immunological match, brother or sister or sibling equivalent may
also be considered.
Body Transplant?
But in that video claim, it was not about cell transplantation
I explain here, but a far-fetched whole organ or body transplantation from
one person to another person such as a head of a donor into the body of an entirely
different person.
At least this was what I could gather from the video you Whatsapp to me. I could not hear clearly what he was saying as
the sound from the speaker in my smart phone was quite soft and inaudible.
I think what he was claiming was to make a cut in the neck in
a recipient, and transplant the stem
cells taken from the head of another person into it, and allow the cells to
grow into a head?
How can this be possible? This means the recipient will now
have two head, one his own, the other from the stem cells of a donor’s head?
Two Heads?
First of all the head or an organ if you like, itself is not
made up of the same cells. The cells and tissues there are all different. It has a bony skull, the brain, the cervical
vertebrae, the blood vessels, the nerves, besides the eyes, ears, mouth,
inclusive of the tongue, teeth, larynx, pharynx, trachea…etc. They are all anatomically, histologically
different. Even their physiological functions are different.
Their structures have different types of tissues and cells. How
is it possible to take so many types of somatic stem cells and called them “head
stem cells” and transplant all of them into the head or neck of another person
and call it “body transplant”?
Even If that is theoretically conceivable, let alone
practical, then he will have two heads. Where is the space for two heads on the
neck? How are they going to join together? Where is the transplanted head going
to get a separate blood, and nerve supply, let alone the cervical spinal and
neck muscle that support the head along which the blood and nerves that run along the neck? Let us be scientifically logical about this.
The Head and its Structures:
Let us leave out the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, the bony
structures of the skull and cervical vertebrae.
Let us consider only the brain, nerve and blood supply.
Nerve Innervation:
Let us just look at the cranial nerves that are the nerves
that emerge directly from the brain and the brainstem. There are twelve of them, of which ten emerge
from the brain stem; the remaining two come out directly from the brain. All these cranial
nerves surface from the bottom of the skull. How are stems cells going to do
that?
Besides the cranial nerves, we also have the 7 cervical
Spine vertebrae (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C7), as well as the muscular neck and
spinal nerves.
The anatomy of neck is very well structured, consisting of
bones, nerves, muscles, ligaments and tendons with the cervical spine housing
the spinal cord that sends messages from the brain to control all aspects of
the body’s functions. The neck that supports the head is extraordinarily strong
and flexible, permitting movement in all directions.
Blood Supply:
The brain receives blood supply from the internal carotid
arteries that arise at the point in the neck where the common carotid arteries
bifurcate, and also from the vertebral arteries.
The internal carotid arteries branch to form two major
cerebral arteries, the anterior and middle cerebral arteries.
Then we also have the jugular vein consisting of veins of
the neck that returns blood from the brain, face, and neck to the heart through
the superior vena cava. Their main vessels are the external jugular vein and
the interior jugular vein. These lie on either side of the neck.
All these structures have to be disengaged from the head
when the head is replaced by a new one in a head-to-body transplant
Consider all these independent anatomical structures, yet
they all must physiologically and structurally function as one.
How can you possibly separate them or duplicate them through
so-called “body transplantation”, and yet all of them sitting at the same place
unless you first behead the recipient. This is both surgically and stem cell impossible
Even surgical transplant using the entire head and transplant
it onto the body of another person is practically impossible because you need
to consider all these structures are
closely connected to each other and cannot be separated.
If you need to implant the head of a person onto the body of
another person you literally have to behead both of them first, not just the recipient
or the donor.
This itself, will instantly kill both of them by cutting off
vital blood supply to the brain, and
without blood and oxygen perfusion into the brain parenchyma (soft tissues of
an organ), the brain and brain stem in
particular, permanently die within three
minutes. I do not think you can even use
a heart-lung machine to support.
Then another problem is, how are you going to join up all
the 12 cranial nerves as well as the central spinal cord, the blood vessels,
muscles, ligaments, connective tissues, and place cervical vertebrae together?
Nerve Damage:
Once any nerve, let alone the main spinal cord is severed by
beheading, all motor and sensory functions cease instantly with no more
neurotransmission between the brain and the rest of the body. The person dies
instantly. Nerves unlike muscle fibers do not join up or regenerate once cut
and severed. The person is paralyzed forever.
Once you serve even a small nerve, let alone the (main)
spinal cord, plus the 12 cranial nerves, you leave behind a very huge gap of hundreds
of millions of neuro transmission molecules between the two ends of the nerve for electrical impulses to pass through.
In an undamaged nerve the separation gap is probably just a
few molecules apart for mini electrical impulses to pass or synapse through.
They can polarize and depolarize from cell to cell.
Taken holistically, even if you can put together all the different structures using different
somatic cells found in the head and neck, how are the stems cells able to come together
and join up as solid structures placing
them in different anatomical sites exactly like in an un severed neck? We know they are unable to orientate
themselves once separated structurally to function physiologically as one.
Hence, to the best of my understand using all disciplines of
medical sciences, the man in the video
is talking complete trash, unconceivable
even in the most unrealistic science fiction.
As I said earlier said, that claim is not even considered
answering.
But since you have asked, Captain Sardon Lokman, I just oblige
you out of courtesy, and for educational value.
I hope I have explained.
Thank you again.
lim ju boo
