A groundbreaking surgery is pumping new hope into the future of organ transplants.
On Friday, a team at the University of Maryland transplanted the heart from a genetically modified pig into a patient with terminal heart disease.
And three days after the operation, doctors say 57-year-old David Bennett Sr. is doing well.
"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 his surgery, according to a statement released by the university.
To use the heart, scientists had to edit the pig’s genes, knocking out ones previously linked to organ rejection.
With thousands of Canadians waiting for organ transplants every year, the hope is that procedures like this will one day save lives, but there are still challenges and Bennett’s body could still reject the heart.
“If they can do this on a large scale, and produce a lot of pigs that they could harvest organs that would not be rejected by your body if you needed a transplant — that’s going to be very, very interesting,” Montreal cardiologist Dr. Christopher Labos said.
Reporting by Christine Birak with files from Reuters | Video from the University of Maryland School of Medicine
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