In addition, the team added, researchers have developed new drugs that suppress the immune systems of transplant recipients when the organ comes from a different species. Before this crucial step, researchers would attempt to transplant, say, a pig heart into a baboonbut the heart would ultimately be rejected.
One of the biggest questions surrounding cardiac xenotransplantation with pigs and humans, of course, is patient safety. Could such a process lead to humans being infected with infectious diseases, for example?
That looks quite unlikely, lead author Richard N. Pierson III, MD, division of cardiac surgery at MGH and a professor at Harvard Medical School, said in a prepared statement.
The culmination of a lot of research and hard work by our group and others over the last 35 years is that it now looks as though pig-to-human heart transplantation is feasible, he added.
Pierson thinks the first humans could receive pig hearts by the end of 2021. The teams full analysis is available here.
Recommendation and review posted by G. Smith
