{"id":11250,"date":"2022-01-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-15T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/current_affairs\/uncategorized\/15-01-2022\/first-pig-to-human-heart-transplant\/"},"modified":"2022-01-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-01-15T00:00:00","slug":"first-pig-to-human-heart-transplant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/15-01-2022\/first-pig-to-human-heart-transplant","title":{"rendered":"First Pig-to-Human Heart Transplant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>In News<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">A 57-year-old patient from Maryland in the United States suffering from end-stage heart disease got his second shot at life after receiving a genetically-altered pig heart.<\/span><\/span><\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:circle\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">This represents a remarkable first in the world of medical science.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>About<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Pigs are increasingly becoming popular candidates for organ transplantation. This is because their organs are anatomically similar to those of humans.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Pigs have been contributing to medical research for several years.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">This success could potentially end the years-long backlog of people waiting to receive a healthy organ and open up a brave new world of possibilities.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>What is Xenotransplantation?<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">It is the process of <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>grafting or transplanting organs<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> or tissues between members of different species.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">It has been pursued by modern medical science for decades, but experts have found it difficult to surmount the challenge presented by the immune system\u2019s rejection of an alien organ, ending in deadly outcomes for patients.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Process<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">The transplanted heart was harvested from a pig that had <\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>undergone genetic editing<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"> that saw scientists remove three genes \u201cthat would have led to the rejection of pig organs by humans\u201d along with one that would have led to excessive growth of pig heart tissue.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Further, six human genes that would have facilitated the organ\u2019s acceptance by the human body were inserted into the pig genome.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Organ Shortage Problem<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">In India, patients need 25,000-30,000 liver transplants annually. But only about 1,500 end up receiving them.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Similarly, nearly 50,000 persons suffer from heart failures annually. Still, only about 10-15 heart transplants are performed every year<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">One of the biggest obstacles to transplantation is organ rejection. Scientists have addressed the problem by genetically altering pigs\u2019 organs.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Early xenotransplantation attempts<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">A spate of kidney, liver and heart transplants from non-human primates to humans happened in the 1970s. A majority of them failed.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">This is attributed to organ rejection \u2014 our immune system rejects agents that are foreign to the body. Surgical complications were also behind the failure.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">In 1984, a human infant received a heart from a baboon. She died 21 days after the transplant.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">Primates fell out of favour in the 1990s because they were susceptible to virus spread. This brought pigs into the spotlight.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align:justify\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong><u>Early Attempts<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">In 2017, Chinese surgeons reportedly transplanted pig cornea to restore sight in a human.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type:disc\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\">In 2020, US experts attached a genetically-altered kidney to a brain-dead person.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#000000\"><strong>Source: <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/news\/health\/pig-heart-transplant-a-history-of-the-animal-s-contribution-to-medical-sciences-81085\" style=\"text-decoration:none\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-size:12pt\"><span style=\"font-family:'Book Antiqua',serif\"><span style=\"color:#1155cc\"><strong><u>DTE<\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In News A 57-year-old patient from Maryland in the United States suffering from end-stage heart disease got his second shot at life after receiving a genetically-altered pig heart. This represents a remarkable first in the world of medical science. About Pigs are increasingly becoming popular candidates for organ transplantation. This is because their organs are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[88,26,33],"class_list":["post-11250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-bio-technology","tag-gs-3","tag-science-technology"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2023\/07\/4991465Screenshot_6.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}