The 3-day trial held in June and July was very successful. The human body accepted the pig’s heart and they functioned normally.
The first experiment was done by transplanting a pig’s heart into a 57-year-old man who died of heart disease. He is the first person in history to receive a genetically modified pig’s heart. The experiment was conducted at the University of Maryland. But later he died of heart failure. The cause of death is still unclear.
Through careful genetic engineering and observations, the pig’s heart was made to fit the human body. Procine cytomegalovirus, a virus in pigs, was also found in the blood of a human subject. Experts are of the opinion that this could be the cause of death. The present is the experiment that took place after that.
Four important genetic changes were made in the pig. This is to prevent the organ from growing abnormally and the human body from trying to expel it. Genetic modification experiments were mainly focused on overcoming the incompatibilities between human and pig bodies. Meanwhile, in 2021, researchers at New York University transplanted pig kidneys into brain-dead patients.
Experiments using organs from animals can be performed more safely in brain-dead patients. Everything during the 72 hours after the heart surgery was recorded in real time. The researchers stated in a press conference that they were able to transplant a pig’s heart using the same method used to transplant a normal human heart.
“Our effort is to coordinate all the methods and drugs used in heart transplant surgery to make the heart work as normal,” the researchers said.
Modern medicine has been following decades of surgery and methods of transplanting or attaching animal organs. But the challenge of the body’s immune system rejecting the foreign organ is difficult. It can have fatal consequences in patients.
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