One day, cardiac patients may enjoy a new lease on life with pig hearts beating in their chests, say researchers reporting a major advance Tuesday in cross-species organ transplantation.
Given the dire shortage of organ donors, the use of animal hearts, lungs or livers to save human lives has long been a holy grail of medical science.
But organ rejection has stood stubbornly in the way.
Now scientists from the United States and Germany say they have succeeded in keeping transplanted pig hearts alive in baboons, primate cousins of humans, for a record 2.5 years.
Their method uses a combination of gene modification and targeted immune-suppressing drugs.
“It is very significant because it brings us one step closer to using these organs in humans,” says study co-author Muhammad Mohiuddin of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Maryland.
— AFP
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