Recently, researchers from Germany and Switzerland reported that ¡°modifications to a cross species transplantation approach¡ for the first time has enabled baboons that received genetically modified pig hearts to survive more than six months¡±.
The researchers replaced the hearts of five baboons with those from genetically engineered pigs. This is seen as a breakthrough in human trials for inter-species transplants.
Interestingly, in 1997, Dr Dhani Ram Baruah was arrested for transplanting a pig heart to a human recipient.
The fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons and Physicians in the UK, Baruah is now confined to his office at a 50-acre campus he set up with his life¡¯s savings.
Half a world away from Munich, Baruah is not surprised by the findings. ¡°I was the pioneer,¡± he told TOI. ¡°Whoever transplants a pig heart into a human now, I was the first to do it successfully with seven days¡¯ survival. Xenotransplantation has a bright future if it goes in the right direction.¡±
¡°Way back in 1997, Baruah had transplanted a pig¡¯s heart into a 32-year-old man, Purno Saikia, who had a ventricular septal defect, or hole in the heart. With Baruah was an equally controversial Hong Kong-based cardiac surgeon, Dr Jonathan Ho Kei-Shing. Ho had his own run-in with the Chinese government in 1992, when he fit heart valves made from ox tissue ¡ª designed by Baruah ¡ª into human patients,¡± says a report by TOI.
The surgery lasted for about 15 hours. Saikia died of multiple infections a week later.
Both Baruah and Ho were arrested and charged under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 18 of the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994 (removal of human organ without authority).