News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient. Parent comment

Re:U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient by majormajor on Monday January 10, 2022 @05:51PM (#29884078)
What part do you think opens that door?

Human organ recipients also need immunosuppressants forever, outside of rare cases. This particular case sounds like a very small modification to the source pig, not a pig carrying a human organ.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient by XorNot on Monday January 10, 2022 @08:49PM (#29886119)
I mean I imagine there's research trying to do exactly that: you can identify beating heart cells very early on in embryos, and chimeric organisms are a thing. I imagine someone somewhere is trying to swap out those early cells with human heart cells to see if you can literally grow a pig with a human heart.
[ Parent | on HN ]