Question: In your opinion, what is the most interesting organ of the body and why?

Alex Haragan answered on 2 Jun 2018:

Wow thats probably the hardest question I have had so far!

I trained originally as a biologist, but also as a medical doctor, and work as a pathologist and researcher into cancer – so I can tell you that I have held, touched and chopped up (bit gruesome!) pretty much every organ in the body at some point!

An obvious choice is the brain – it contains our minds, memories, consciousness, feelings and so on. We also know the least about it so its very much an interesting thing to study.

But truthfully I find the brain a little boring to look at under the microscope (where I do a lot my work).
Even though we know more about other organs, there is still a lot we don’t know!

My research is into lung cancer – so I have a lot of love for lungs!

But if I had to pick one I’d probably go for the kidney. I think its the most under-rated organ, but its one of the most important organs. In fact its so important most of us have two! And you can live on a surprisingly small amount of working kidney.

They don’t just make urine, they are involved in some part with every medicine, drug, chemical agent or pretty much anything else you put into your body. They play a massive role in regulating your blood pressure, acid/alkali balance, your metabolism (like sugar) and many other things.
In terms of the variety of jobs that it performs for your body the kidney does more than pretty much any other organ and as a result the number of things that can happen when they go wrong is huge.

I should also say that the senior doctor I most respected in my career was kidney specialist!