Stem Cell and Body Transplant

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