In the US, an experimental surgery has been carried out to transplant the heart of a genetically-modified pig into the body of a man, who had a terminal heart disease and had deemed unworthy for a human heart transplant, British public broadcaster BBC and AFP news agency report.
On Monday, January 10, three days after the seven-hour procedure in Baltimore by the Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Centre, media were told that the man was alive and doing well.
The doctors were issued a special dispensation by the US medical regulator to perform out the procedure, on the basis that David Bennett, who had terminal heart disease and agreed to the surgery, would otherwise have died.
The animal in the transplant had been genetically modified to delete several genes that would have led to the organ being rejected by the human. Surgeon Bartley Griffith commented that the surgery would bring the world «one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis». At present, the estimates are that 17 people die every day in the US waiting for a transplant, with more than 100,000 reportedly on the waiting list, BBC reports.
American man gets genetically-modified pig’s heart in experimental surgery
