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Hearts taken from pigs engineered so the organs won’t produce extreme immune reactions if transplanted into humans or other primates can support the life of recipient baboons for up to 195 days, according to a report in Nature today (December 5). The study, in which four baboons lived in good health for several months after surgery, brings xenotransplantation one step closer to the clinic, say researchers.
“I think this is an extremely important paper. It provides the longest survival yet of orthotopic heart [transplants] across the species barrier of pig to primate,” says transplantation specialist David Sachs of Columbia University Medical Center in New York who was not involved in the research. “Six months is a major jump forward.”
“With the survivorship that they’ve seen . . . there’s every reason to think that progression into the clinic is a worthwhile thing to do,” adds xenotransplantation ...
