Why do doctors try to put animal parts into human bodies?
Sometimes, a person’s heart, liver, kidney, or other organ stops working properly because of illness or accident. In these cases, getting a brand new organ is the person’s best chance of staying alive. However, there is a very low number of organs available in the world. We all need our organs to stay alive and usually don’t have any extra to give to others who need them. Sometimes, people donate their organs upon their death and doctors transplant these into other people’s bodies who need that organ to live. But most often, it’s almost impossible for people to receive the organs they need. To solve this problem, scientists have been trying to put animal organs in human bodies for hundreds of years.
Does putting animal organs in humans help?
Doctors have tried putting goat and pig kidneys, and chimpanzee and baboon hearts in humans. So far, all of these people have died. Despite this, doctors have not given up. With each new transplant, they have become better at it. They’ll keep trying till they get it right.
What has been the latest attempt to put an animal organ in a human?
A 57-year-old man named David Bennett Sr. from the USA had a very damaged heart. He needed a transplant urgently but wasn’t getting a human heart anywhere. In January 2022, doctors decided to try putting a pig’s heart in him.
Was the transplant successful?
The good news - this was the best animal-human organ transplant in the history of the world. David Bennett Sr. lived for two whole months after the transplant surgery. He did a lot of fun things with his family during this time. Usually, people have died within hours or days of such an operation. The bad news - Bennett Sr. died suddenly two months after the surgery. Doctors have learnt many things from this operation about animal-human transplants that they didn’t know before. As they continue to keep learning, someday patients who receive a pig’s heart will be able to live years instead of months.
