Are transplanted organs 'alive'?

Question

I'm having a debate with my friend about the sentimentalities of organ transplants... she says that a transplanted heart (for example) is dead, but i am arguing that it beats, and becomes a part of your body in just the same way as a normal (original) heart (once it's been 'accepted' by the recipient)

Can anyone please mediate? (and ideally say your knowledge of the topic, i.e. I invented Organ Transplants)

Answer 1

Let's put it this way: The basic unit of life is pretty much the cell. Everything that we know of that's alive is made of cells (at least temporarily).

Even if you're looking at just one cell, whether it is alive or not can be a subject of discussion. Sometimes cells go dormant and can degrade over time but eventually revive themselves, fix up their problems, and go about their business. As you can imagine it gets even more complicated when we're talking about things made up of many cells.

But there is at least one thing we can be pretty certain of - if you have a bunch of cells that are all dead, they're pretty much going to stay that way. Nobody can dig up a corpse and use it for organ transplants.

So let's look at what DOES happen. A donor for an organ is pronounced 'dead'. This can mean a brain that isn't responding, heart stoppage, or just massive unrecoverable damage. And though the person as a whole is dead, many (if not most) of his cells are still quite alive. But they are in big trouble - they are dependant on the donor as a whole being alive for their own survival. Those cells may not be dead now, but they soon will be.

Presuming they get permission from the donor's family, an organ is then carefully removed and packed in ice and blood. This is not for no reason! The blood provides nutrients for an organ not connected to a heart and fresh blood supply any more. Some organs go though a dozen pints (!) of blood just as they're being transported! Ice also helps keep the organ as a whole alive - cells react to the cold by shutting down instead of running at full speed. Sort of like those stories you may hear about a person being saved from drowning by nearly freezing to death.

Once an organ is removed its life is measured only in hours. You can't store organs in a freezer and dispense them on demand. They have to go pretty much straight from a donor to a recipient. People who are high on the list to recieve organs are usually on call with pagers and the like (if they're not permanently hospitalized anyway) so they can come in at a moment's notice.

In a sense, then, it all depends on scale. The cells of an organ are dying every moment. Removing an organ and trying to stick it into someone else only increases the rate of death. But unless almost all of them stay alive and the organ gets working again, the whole thing is a waste of time. Certainly the donor is dead, and perhaps by many sense the organ is 'dead' while it's being moved around (and then comes back to life). And once it's in a new host, there isn't too much difference at all, really.

Answer 2

Transplanted organs have to be alive or they wouldn't work in the new body.
Thats why the transplant team only has a few hours to get the organ from one place to the other and there is usually an airplane or helicopter on stand by. Those people that are transporting the organ to the recipient have only a short amount of time to get it there and are ready at a moments notice.

Answer 3

Yes transplantted organs are still alive but a heart isn't beating until it's been placed in the recipient and restarted.

Answer 4

When the original "owner" dies, the organs also die. But, they are brought back to life when they are put into the new person. The organs can be recessitated in a short amount of time after the death of the donor. That's why the donor and the recipient must be a match in terms of blood type, etc...The organ needs to "think" that it's in the original body.

Answer 5

As long as the cells in the transplanted organ are alive, the organ is arguably alive, but not in the sense of being sentient.

Answer 6

It all depends on how one defines 'alive' in this case it seems to be that alive is being defined as the ability to carry out biological processes. In which case transplant organs are just as alive as 'normal' ones.

Biology student

Answer 7

A heart is dead in the sense that it's not beating, but it's not dead in the sense that not enough of it 's cells have died to prevent it from being revived and start it's beating again.

Answer 8

They're alive, and comprise living cells.

There are a few exceptions to that rule. The crystalline lens of the eye would be an example of that -- it's nonliving.

Answer 9

They have to be kept frozen for about 24-48 hours before thay die so you need to find a donor asap

Answer 10

I think you have to look at it from a totally differnt aspect. It's how long the organ is viable after brain death....