October
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- Oct 5, 2009
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A heart doctor has given a patient a transfusion of pig's blood in an operation that may pave the way for animal-to-human organ transplants.
Dr. Dhaniram Baruah, a London surgeon, injected more than half a pint of the blood into a man suffering from severe anemia.
Baruah, 50, says he has developed a method of preventing the rejection of animal tissue by the human body, and hopes to continue research on animal donors in human medicine.
The experimental transfusion took place when critically ill laborer Hussan Ali, 22, agreed to receive the blood last month in a last-ditch effort to save his life.
Almost four weeks later, Ali - who has an undisclosed illness - is alive and has been discharged from the hospital.
Test results confirm Ali has "nonhuman" blood cells circulating in his body.
Baruah believes he is on the way to a medical breakthrough that will provide a plentiful supply of blood for operations - particularly in underdeveloped countries where human blood donors are in short supply.
Pig blood might be used in the treatment of AIDS, hemophilia and other blood disorders, he claims.
"I believe I can use the same technique to make donor bone-marrow cells compatible from unmatched donors. It will be of great value in treating leukemia patients," he told The Sunday Times in Britain.
He says the key is an "antigen-suppression agent," necessary to prevent the body from rejecting tissue from another organism.
But he won't discuss details because he is planning to patent his discovery.
Animal-to-human transplants have been controversial because of the seemingly insurmountable problem of new, untreatable diseases getting into humans from transplanted animal organs.
The creators of Dolly the cloned sheep announced last August that they were abandoning work on animal-to-human transplantation.
Three years ago, Baruah caused outrage in India when he performed the world's first pig-to-human transplant.
The patient regained consciousness after receiving the heart and lungs of a pig, but died a week later, apparently from acute infection.
The surgeon spent more than a month in jail before prosecutors dropped charges that he had contravened India's organ-transplant act.
source: crt
http://www.crt-online.org/121800.html
Dr. Dhaniram Baruah, a London surgeon, injected more than half a pint of the blood into a man suffering from severe anemia.
Baruah, 50, says he has developed a method of preventing the rejection of animal tissue by the human body, and hopes to continue research on animal donors in human medicine.
The experimental transfusion took place when critically ill laborer Hussan Ali, 22, agreed to receive the blood last month in a last-ditch effort to save his life.
Almost four weeks later, Ali - who has an undisclosed illness - is alive and has been discharged from the hospital.
Test results confirm Ali has "nonhuman" blood cells circulating in his body.
Baruah believes he is on the way to a medical breakthrough that will provide a plentiful supply of blood for operations - particularly in underdeveloped countries where human blood donors are in short supply.
Pig blood might be used in the treatment of AIDS, hemophilia and other blood disorders, he claims.
"I believe I can use the same technique to make donor bone-marrow cells compatible from unmatched donors. It will be of great value in treating leukemia patients," he told The Sunday Times in Britain.
He says the key is an "antigen-suppression agent," necessary to prevent the body from rejecting tissue from another organism.
But he won't discuss details because he is planning to patent his discovery.
Animal-to-human transplants have been controversial because of the seemingly insurmountable problem of new, untreatable diseases getting into humans from transplanted animal organs.
The creators of Dolly the cloned sheep announced last August that they were abandoning work on animal-to-human transplantation.
Three years ago, Baruah caused outrage in India when he performed the world's first pig-to-human transplant.
The patient regained consciousness after receiving the heart and lungs of a pig, but died a week later, apparently from acute infection.
The surgeon spent more than a month in jail before prosecutors dropped charges that he had contravened India's organ-transplant act.
source: crt
http://www.crt-online.org/121800.html