I was searching around for information on body cell replacement and stumbled on this thread, where I found this unrelated but intriguing quote:
This got me to thinking… supposing a hypothetical dying man with, shall we say, about 6-12 months left to live (perhaps more or less if that would affect the type of experiments that are performable), and assuming he is sane and rational but decides he wants to donate the remainder of his existence to furthering science or medical research, even at the cost of a further reduced lifespan, what sort of experiments could he (legally) volunteer himself for that would not be able to be performed on a non-terminal patient due to safety, moral, ethical, etc concerns?
I’d like to avoid the obvious answer of experimental treatments designed specifically for the ailment our patient is suffering, if possible. While no doubt equally noble and potentially beneficial to society, what I’m really curious about is what sort of gaps we have in our understandings of biology or physiology that could be better explored if only there were an ethically acceptable way for a person to volunteer his own mortality.