Will the artificially engineer pig heart sustain itself in the human body? Can we use our drugs to trick that response and make it not occur? Will there be clotting or harm to the heart as blood cells move through it? You could see blood cells damage because they are in a different environment. Those are some of the early landmarks that you want to learn about. This was a pickhot transplant. And you mentioned work on kidneys too. What about other organs? Ah, well, the easiest organ, in a weird way, to point is the heart. It's a pump. Kidneys have to basically filter waste material, and there are some ormones that are involved in that system
Earlier this month, in a medical first, surgeons from the University of Maryland transplanted a genetically altered pig heart into a living person. Doctors believed it was their only chance to save the life of David Bennett, a 57-year-old patient who was considered too ill for a human organ replacement. With hundreds of thousands of people worldwide in need of new organs, are animals set to be the future of transplantation? Ian Sample talks to bioethicist Prof Arthur Caplan about how the operation was made possible, and what could be next. Help support our independent journalism at
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