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Researchers in China placed a lung from a genetically modified pig into a brain-dead man, with mixed results.
By Roni Caryn Rabin
Scientists have dreamed for centuries about using animal organs to treat ailing humans. In recent years, those efforts have begun to bear fruit: Researchers have begun transplanting the hearts and kidneys of genetically modified pigs into patients, with varying degrees of success.
But lungs are notoriously difficult to transplant, even from human to human, and mortality rates are high. Now, in the first procedure of its kind, Chinese scientists on Monday reported transplanting a lung from a pig into a brain-dead man.
