Scientists Grow Pig's Heart On Sheep's Neck

t0rnt0pieces writes "Yahoo! News reports that Nebraska scientists say they successfully grafted a pig's heart to a sheep by manipulating the immune systems of both animals, a step that may soon allow scientists to grow organs for human transplantation. Trials using pig organs to transplant into humans are on the way. Besides hearts, the technology could be applicable to kidney, liver and pancreatic islet cell transplants. Take a look at a picture of one of the sheep here."

Comments

Re:Surely this is a joke?

[!splut]

Had you read the article, the first sentence would have informed you that the porcine heart was surgically grafted to the neck of the sheep, as opposed to being grown in situ.

The medical and scientific implications of this experiment have less to do with the surgical grafting procedure than with the fact that the process was done in such a way as to prevent immunological rejection of the pig heart by the majority of the sheep in the study. It is this rejection by the immune system that prevents pig parts from being used in organ transplants for humans.

-ks