American man receives a swine heart transplant

On March 31, 2018, the world's first model pig of neurological disease was born. (Photo courtesy of Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences)

Washington, January 10 (Xinhua News Agency) -- The University of Maryland Medical Center in the United States released news on the 10th that medical experts have successfully performed a special transplant operation for a male heart patient in the United States, transplanting the heart of a genetically modified pig into his body, which is the first case in the world. The man was in good condition 3 days after surgery.

The University of Maryland Medical Center said experts had previously consulted the 57-year-old man named David Bennett and decided that his condition was not suitable for a traditional heart transplant, and his heart disease was very urgent, and the heart transplant was the last hope to save his life, and the expert team finally obtained urgent authorization from U.S. regulators and patient consent.

According to reports, the patient underwent the operation at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, USA. The pigs used in the transplant have been genetically modified to include "knocking out" genes that cause rejection in humans, as well as a specific gene to prevent excessive growth of pig heart tissue transplanted into humans.

The center said the transplant was the first to show that a genetically modified animal heart can function like a human heart when transplanted into a human body, and that the body does not immediately reject the animal's heart.

The New York Times reported that after Bennett underwent surgery on the 7th, no abnormalities occurred in the most critical 48 hours. He still needs to connect medical devices, doctors are still closely monitoring Bennett's body for rejection, and bennett is using a new experimental drug that inhibits the body's rejection.

The report quoted researchers as saying that it is hoped that surgery like this can bring hope to more than 500,000 American patients waiting for kidney or other organ transplants in the future, but such surgeries also need to overcome many obstacles before they can be widely used, including human rejection.