American-Pakistani doctor, Dr. Mansoor Mohiuddin, has become the first doctor in the world to implant a pig’s heart in a patient. Dr. Mohiuddin performed the surgery along with a team of other doctors. Implanting the pig’s heart became inevitable after all the methods to save the life of a 57-year-old patient, David Bennet.
David Bennet has also become the first person in the world to undergo a genetically-modified pig-heart transplant. The long-term chance of survival is still not known.
Dr. Mansoor Mohiuddin hails from Karachi and is a graduate of the Dow University of Health Sciences. In his interview with a local media outlet, he said, “We researched about the genetic makeup of a pig’s heart and learned to genetically modify it in any way through different genetic techniques.”
“Experiments have been done on a monkey’s heart for heart transplants for humans in the past, but they did not work out. However, the experiment on a pig’s heart did.”
“We examined all animals to find out which of them is closest to humans and found a pig suitable for the experiment,” he added.
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A Maryland man has become the first person to successfully receive a heart transplant from a gene-edited pig, after a 9-hour surgery.
Scientists say it could be a breakthrough for organ transplants:
▪️ over 100,000 people on U.S. organ waiting lists
▪️ 17 die waiting each day pic.twitter.com/i1EGS0e0ez— AJ+ (@ajplus) January 10, 2022
He explained that a pig grows very fast and the heart of a month-old pig’s heart is the size of a human heart. Regarding the cost of the transplant, he said that it is not a big deal since such medical procedures are insured in America and other countries.
“However, the main expenditure was made on genetically modifying a pig’s heart because it is a very lengthy procedure and we took genes from different pigs to do the job so it cost around $500,000,” he said.
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A day before the surgery patient, Bennet said to BBC that “it was either die or do this transplant.” “I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” he said.