Pakistani’s research leads to first pig-to-human heart transplant

 WASHINGTON: Dow graduate Dr Mohammad Mohiuddin’s groundbreaking research led to the first pig-to-human heart transplant in history and the heart is now beating normally in the body of a 57-year-old recipient, David Bennet Sr.

Doctors at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSM) said Mr Bennet had a life-threatening heart disease but did not specify his illness.

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“We are all very excited to see this pig heart beating in this human. This pig heart has performed very well so far. Even beyond our expectations, since we have not seen any signs of rejection,” said Dr Mohiuddin in an interview released by the UMSM.

Doctors and surgeons at the UMSM told The New York Times (NYT) that the eight-hour operation took place in Baltimore on Friday, and the patient, a Maryland resident, was doing well on MondayDeclaring the process “a game changer”, Dr Mohiuddin said that if this transplant worked, “we will now have all these organs readily available. And I hope it will work”.

Dr Mohiuddin did his MBBS from the Dow Medical College, Karachi in 1989 and did his residency at the Civil Hospital Karachi in 1990 and 1991. Between 1991 and 1993, he did his fellowship in transplantation biology and immunology at the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Medical Centre

Dr Mohiuddin is the director of the university’s xeno­transplant programme. Taking a tissue or organ from a donor of a species and planting it in the body of another species is called xenotransplant or xenografting

Dr Mohiuddin said that hundreds of thousands of people across the globe needed organs and “unfortunately, like this patient, may not qualify for a transplant