Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran a front page entitled ”Kidney Shortage Inspires a Radical Idea: Organ Sales.” The article has generated a great deal of discussion, including this thread over at Freakonomics.
To me, the idea of organ sales isn’t that radical and I would argue that what needs to happen in the short term is that a great many people need to ”unlearn” their gut reaction opposition to organ sales.
My point, however, is not to digress into the moral, ethical and societal merits of whether society should or shouldn’t allow organ sales; rather, I’d like to bring to your attention this recent article discussing the amazing progress being made in the field of “printing” organs.
That’s right, researchers using bio-ink and bio-paper are now making great strides in printing physical organs. Researchers such as Dr. Anthony Atala have already successfully “printed” human bladders and, as this article suggests, progress is being made with other organs.
Given the exponential pace of advancement in the equipment, technology and science of organ growth (e.g. cell biology, stem cell biology, materials science, computational science, etc.), it is my opinion that within a decade’s time all of this discussion about organ sales will have disappeared because printing organs will have become as common as pace-makers and in-vitro fertilization—two scientific advances which, by the way, were also vehemently opposed when they were first proven feasible.
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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.
