The dark side of the company that seeks to grow organs in human bodies

The American company, based in Richmond, California, presented itself publicly this year assuring that it is working on the creation of organ sacks o non-sentient “organ sacs”initially in monkeys, with the aim of replacing part of the animal experimentation used in the pharmaceutical industry.

According to its directors, these biological structures would lack a functional brain and, therefore, they could not experience pain or consciousness. However, the report of MIT Technology Review contradicts that proposal by maintaining that there is a much more ambitious roadmap.

According to a publication, the company’s founder, John Schloendorn, presented to investors the possibility of create cloned human bodies with minimal brain developmentcapable of staying biologically alive but without consciousness. In theory, these bodies could become reserves of compatible organs or a hypothetical platform for future full transplants.

The project appears at a time when research on longevity and life extension They attract billions of dollars of private investment.

Figures such as the American businessman Bryan Johnson They popularized the idea of ​​using technology to delay biological aging, a trend that gave rise to dozens of startups focused on regenerative medicine, gene editing, and laboratory-grown organs.

R3 Bio seems to be located at the most radical end of that trend. The documents revealed by MIT point to what they call “body replacement cloning” or cloning for full body replacement.

The company, for its part, publicly denied that it was developing human clones or people with induced brain damage and described these interpretations as incorrect.

Although mammal cloning has been around for almost three decades—the most famous case being Dolly the sheep—creating a complete human body, keeping it viable, and ensuring the complete absence of consciousness remains a challenge. out of capabilities of modern science.

Nor does there exist today a technique capable of transplanting a human brain or reconnecting a functionally severed spinal cord. For this reason, many researchers consider that the proposal is much closer to the speculation than a real medical application.

The controversy that R3 Bio aroused with its biotechnological project does not arise in a vacuum. According to international health organizations, the demand for organs vastly exceeds the supply of donors in practically the entire world.

In fact, it is estimated that there are thousands of patients in the world who die each year waiting for a compatible transplantas well as the waiting list. In Argentina, for example, They are currently 7344 those who are in this condition.

For this reason, numerous laboratories are currently working on alternatives such as 3D printed organstissues cultured from stem cells, xenotransplants and laboratory-generated organs.

For advocates of companies like R3 Bio, a biologically compatible organism could eliminate immunological rejection and reduce organ shortage. For its detractors, the moral cost of moving in that direction would be too high.

For now, there is no evidence that the startup has created human clones or human bodies without consciousness. What does exist is an increasingly intense discussion about the limits of biotechnology in an era where artificial intelligence, genetic engineering and regenerative medicine advance at an unprecedented speed.