Xenotransplantation:
The first recipient of a modified pig kidney transplant passed away around two months after the surgery was carried out.
- Xenotransplantation is any procedure that involves the transplantation, implantation or infusion into a human recipient of either live cells, tissues, or organs from a nonhuman animal source or human body fluids, cells, tissues or organs that have had ex vivo contact with live nonhuman animal cells, tissues or organs.
- Xenotransplantation involving the heart was first tried in humans in the 1980s.
- The animal organ selected has to undergo genetic modifications, so that the human body does not reject it.
- Even after the operation, constant monitoring needs to be done to check the body’s response to the organ.
