http://newstonight.net/content/gm-pig-organs-human-transplantGM Pig Organs for Human Transplant
BY PRATIBHA MINHAS
Organ donation is a noble cause that has adequate potential to save millions of lives or to facilitate a physically disabled person in living a normal life. In spite number of awareness campaigns and even after realizing the significance of organ donation, people do not participate actively in these activities and push countless organ seekers to climb huge waiting lists due to organ unavailability whereas many die in between.
As an attempt to address the issue and to reduce the number of deaths because of organ unavailability, experts have notified about a medical revolution suggesting to make use of Genetically Modified (GM) pigs for transplant among humans. The pig organs will be outfitted with genes so that human immune response cannot treat them as foreign agents.
While commenting on the findings, a cardiac surgeon at Frontier Lifeline Hospital in Chennai, Dr. Soma Guha Takurtha said: "We are often called vertical pigs. This is because the size of pig organs - heart, liver, pancreas and kidneys - match well, making them anatomically similar".
In addition, the expert, who carried out operations to make best use of pig extracted tissues on humans, also marked transgenic pigs as best source to fulfill organ requirement to carry out necessary transplant operations among humans.
In addition, experts have claimed that clinical xenotransplantation has reflected good results to cure a number of health conditions.
While briefing the findings, the team of experts from the Pittsburgh University anticipated that the use of same technique to carry out transplant of major organs such as lung, heart as well as kidney may consume a few more years. They notified that experts need to perform more research to address complications such as clot formation in order to make it a reality soon.