This is amazing. Still to early to tell how successful this was. It bring up a lot of interesting impacts for people in need of organs. The donor pig underwent gene editing to make it a more suitable donor. Interesting implications of editing the genes of an animal to make it a suitable donor.
I remember reading that as self-driving cars take over they expect less auto fatalities, and therefore less donated organs. I'm sure COVID has had a large impact on the availability of organs, from infected donors to less donors being out and dying.
I'd be interested in this board's thoughts on what this means to this person's soul or eternal body or whatever you believe. Also in the morality of editing a animal's genes to make it a suitable donor.
Pretty crazy the procedure only takes 7 hours, I would have expected a lot more.
I didn't know this had a word: xenotransplantation
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/david-bennett-pig-heart-transplant_n_61dca634e4b0d637aea5a105
I remember reading that as self-driving cars take over they expect less auto fatalities, and therefore less donated organs. I'm sure COVID has had a large impact on the availability of organs, from infected donors to less donors being out and dying.
I'd be interested in this board's thoughts on what this means to this person's soul or eternal body or whatever you believe. Also in the morality of editing a animal's genes to make it a suitable donor.
Pretty crazy the procedure only takes 7 hours, I would have expected a lot more.
I didn't know this had a word: xenotransplantation
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/david-bennett-pig-heart-transplant_n_61dca634e4b0d637aea5a105
Quote:
The patient, David Bennett, 57, knew there was no guarantee the experiment would work but he was dying, ineligible for a human heart transplant and had no other option, his son told The Associated Press.
"It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. I know it's a shot in the dark, but it's my last choice," Bennett said a day before the surgery, according to a statement provided by the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
There's a huge shortage of human organs donated for transplant, driving scientists to try to figure out how to use animal organs instead. Last year, there were just over 3,800 heart transplants in the U.S., a record number, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees the nation's transplant system.
"If this works, there will be an endless supply of these organs for patients who are suffering," said Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, scientific director of the university's animal-to-human transplant program.
The difference this time: The Maryland surgeons used a heart from a pig that had undergone gene-editing to remove a sugar in its cells that's responsible for that hyper-fast organ rejection.