The recent development of medical transplantation, reference genetically modified pig heart into a 57-year-old man, has now grabbed social attention to a great extent. The doctors concerned with thie same have received widespread attention.
It was in 1997 itself that a cardio-thoracic surgeon based in Sonapur near Guwahati, Dhaniram Baruah transplanted the organs of a pig into a human body. However, his xenotransplantation procedure ended badly.
According to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Xenotransplantation is any procedure that involves the transplantation, implantation or infusion into a human recipient of either (a) live cells, tissues, or organs from a nonhuman animal source, or (b) human body fluids, cells, tissues or organs that have had ex vivo contact with live nonhuman animal cells, tissues or organs.
The official website of the FDA mentions, “Although the potential benefits are considerable, the use of xenotransplantation raises concerns regarding the potential infection of recipients with both recognized and unrecognized infectious agents and the possible subsequent transmission to their close contacts and into the general human population.”
It adds, “Of public health concern is the potential for cross-species infection by retroviruses, which may be latent and lead to disease years after infection.”
Dr. Baruah from Assam had carried out 102 animal experiments on xenotransplantation. As per media reports, he transplanted a pig’s heart, lung and kidneys to Purno Saikia, a 32-year-old end-stage organ failure patient, on January 1, 1997. Jonathan Ho, a Hong Kong-based doctor, had assisted him in the transplantation at his research centre.