I know that a large part of organ transplants are if they’ll stick or get rejected, but why do they do that? I imagine if your body wants to live it’ll take what it can get so to outright refuse a new organ seems a little counterproductive unless there’s something inhibiting that.
In: Biology
> I imagine if your body wants to live
Your body is great at living! That’s why it rejects organs.
Your body has an immune system, and your immune system’s entire job is recognizing foreign pathogens that can cause you harm, and destroying them. If you get an organ transplant, your immune system might think that the tissue is a foreign pathogen.
We lessen the risk of rejection two ways – one, by donor matching (which helps because if the new tissue is similar to your existing tissue, it’s less likely that your immune system will view it as a pathogen,) and two, by giving transplant patients immunosuppressive therapy – literally, ways to make their immune system less active and thus less likely to destroy the new tissue.
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