The frontier of xenotransplants is advancing, i.e. organs of other living beings used for humans. After the kidney of a pig transplanted in the USA, The first genetically modified pig liver arrives from China, which was implanted on a clinically dead fifty-year-old whose family had given the OK to the experiment. The 'Nature' website reports it.
The heart 'worked' for about ten days and then it was removed. The operation was carried out at the Xijing Hospital of Xi'an Air Force Medical University. The pig's liver produced more than 30 milliliters of bile every day, which shows that it was “functioning normally”, the Chinese researchers claim, and before being surgically removed it “showed no signs of immediate organ rejection”.
The liver was taken from a pig that had undergone six genetic modifications: “Three of these serve to deactivate genes that produce porcine proteins and the other three instead introduce three human genes, with the aim of avoiding rejection of the organ by of the recipient”, underline the researchers.
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