Close relatives of humans survived after ... pig heart transplant

A German research group claims to have kept "one of the closest relatives of humans" alive for 195 days after pig heart transplant surgery.

The study, published in Nature, says scientists will quickly advance to a human clinical trial, because the main purpose of this pig heart transplant experiment is to transplant people themselves, to solve them. serious shortage of organ resources.

A day away these pigs will provide organs for heart transplantation for humans - (artwork from the internet).

Dr. Bruno Reichart, specialist in cardiac surgery at Ludwig Maximilian University (Munich-Germany), the lead author of the scientific paper, said they had grafted pigs' hearts for five baboons. Four of them survived for at least 90 days and one of them even survived half a year - 195 days.

These hearts are 100% pig heart, not one human or monkey cell as in some previous studies, but have passed the genetic transformation to eliminate some of the risk-transmitted viruses. pigs come and fight graft rejection.

According to the team, baboons are a very close relative, sharing many genetic traits with humans, so the transplantation of these monkeys' bodies opens great hope for humans.

Pig heart (left) and heart of baboons - (photo: NATURE).

The reason for thinking about other organ transplants is because of a lack of heart and a lack of organs for transplants is a major obsession for many countries' medicine. A statistic of the US Federal Organ Sharing Network shows that up to 20 people die every day due to inadequate waiting for organ transplants in this country alone. Statistics in the UK show that about 1,000 people die each year while waiting for a donor agency.

Commenting on the work of Germany, professor - Dr. Christopher McGregor, specialist in cardiac surgery at University College London (UCL, the member school of London University, UK) commented that this work is an important milestone for transplantation in humans."In Europe, the demand for the heart is huge and exceeds supply by at least 10 times," he told The Telegraph.

Many other scientists in the UK also asked authorities to consider collaborating and funding this work and similar research activities.

The biggest obstacle to animal organ transplants is the risk of unintentionally infecting unrecognized infectious agents from animals into humans, thereby spreading among people and people that the World Health Organization each alert. Therefore, scientists will have to face many obstacles before widespread application of pig heart transplantation.