What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
NEW DELHI: Deemed ineligible for a human transplant, David Bennett, 57, a US man has become the first person in the world to get a heart transplant from a genetically-modified pig. The transplant recipient had advanced heart failure and a type of arrhythmia called ventricular fibrillation. Because he had not taken steps to control his high blood pressure and other health problems. The process was a 7-hour experimental procedure, in Baltimore, doctors said. Not entirely clear what the long-term implications of this transplant are, this was the last chance for Bennett to survive. “It was either die or do this transplant,” Bennett explained a day before the surgery. “I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” he said.
Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center said that they were granted a special dispensation by the US medical regulator to carry out the procedure, on the basis that Bennett — who has terminal heart disease — would otherwise have died due to his condition. For the medical team who carried out the transplant, it marks the culmination of years of research and could change lives around the world. Currently, 17 people die every day in the US waiting for a transplant, with more than 100,000 reportedly on the waiting list.
The possibility of using animal organs for so-called Xenotransplantation to meet the demand has been considered for a long time, and using pig heart valves is very common. In October 2021, a group of surgeons in New York announced that they had successfully transplanted a pig’s kidney into a person. At the time, the operation was the most advanced experiment in the field so far. However, the recipient on that occasion was brain dead with no hope of recovery.
Xenotransplantation is any procedure that involves the transplantation, implantation, or infusion into a human recipient of either live cells, tissues, or organs from a nonhuman animal source. Cross-species transplantation (xenotransplantation) offers the prospect of an unlimited supply of organs and cells for clinical transplantation, thus resolving the critical shortage of human tissues that currently prohibits a majority of patients on the waiting list from receiving transplants.
Taking a look back at the Greek mythology and of religious tracts — for example, from the Hindu religion — draws attention to the fact that humans have been interested in the possibility of combining physical features from various animal species for hundreds of years. For example, the chimera has been used to represent the allotransplantation of organs and cells (transplantation between members of the same species). The late Keith Reemtsma pointed out that possibly one of the earliest examples of xenotransplantation was the attempt by Daedalus and his son, Icarus, to fly across the sea from Crete to mainland Greece with the help of birdwings attached to their arms. Icarus failed in the attempt.
