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U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

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Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#111

Post by polishdude20 »

dexwiz wrote: post #61
tricky wrote: post #26

You might be asking, why a pig? I don't know, but forever ago I wrote software for a cardiovascular imaging lab and pigs were their primary test subjects. I was like, "why pigs?" and the PI was like, "Imaging-wise, pig hearts aren't too different from humans. Plus, we can give them a heart attack in the scanner and not go to jail. Some labs use dogs. I just can't do that."

Pigs are really common in biomedical testing. They are physically a similar size and weight to humans. They also reach maturity in about 6 months. Much cheaper to raise than primates, and more likely to get approval for testing. My friends in biomed grad school named one of theirs cyber pig because it has about 30 different experiments ran on it before it was killed, and afterwards it was portioned out for further te…

How do you make sure all those experiments don't interfere with eachother?

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#112

Post by pazimzadeh »

dukeofdoom wrote: post #64

So..."human pig hybrid". How full is the tip jar for things Alex Jones was right about. If you grant him some room for hyperbole and exaggeration guy is a pretty good futurist. He brags about reading research papers all day long. Fascinating role as a court jester and modern day prophet.

This research has always been out in the open. My mom is one of the people who dedicated her life to it - it would be nice if it wasn't just used to scare people.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC2866107/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC7990044/

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#113

Post by greensoap »

krisoft wrote: post #101
shagie wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Alpha Gal sugar. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/alpha... and https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/articles/retur... are good listens on the subject. In particular from the second one: > SOREN: Which brings me back to that little part of the article that piqued my interest in the beginning, because the pig that they got the kidney from to do this was a very special pig. Normally, p…

Now I wonder if someone who got meat alergy after a tick bite could eat these pigs. Is this the same alpha gal in both cases? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy

Yes, they can. That was the focus of the RadioLab update on the Alpha Gal pigs. The person that loved meat before getting the allergy had moved on to a non-meat life. And when the company started marketing alpha gal safe meat, that person was the inspiration and the person was not happy about it.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#114

Post by ummonk »

mattrighetti wrote: post #105
Ensorceled wrote: post #47

Reminder: We've been replacing human heart VALVES with pig valves for a long time now. My grandmother lived for almost a decade after her replacement. https://www.heart-valve-surgery.com/learning/pig-valve-repla...

My father got a brand new cow valve a few months ago. He had to choose between that, a pig one and a mechanical one, each one is better for each specific case from what I understand. But yeah, crazy stuff.

I imagine Muslims, Jews, and Hindus would tend to have specific preferences as well.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#116

Post by tricky »

Victerius wrote: post #48
tricky wrote: post #26

You might be asking, why a pig? I don't know, but forever ago I wrote software for a cardiovascular imaging lab and pigs were their primary test subjects. I was like, "why pigs?" and the PI was like, "Imaging-wise, pig hearts aren't too different from humans. Plus, we can give them a heart attack in the scanner and not go to jail. Some labs use dogs. I just can't do that."

What ... happens to the pigs who get accidental heart attacks? Are they ...? Do they ...?

oh, the heart attacks weren't accidental. They imaged the pig real time while inducing a heart attack to see how the muscle deformed. I never did ask what they did with the dead pigs, but they did have special carts to wheel them around the hospital. People didn't like seeing sedated pigs in the hospital so they had a cart with high sides and they'd throw a sheet over it.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#117

Post by [deleted] »

ummonk wrote: post #114
mattrighetti wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father got a brand new cow valve a few months ago. He had to choose between that, a pig one and a mechanical one, each one is better for each specific case from what I understand. But yeah, crazy stuff.

I imagine Muslims, Jews, and Hindus would tend to have specific preferences as well.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#118

Post by thedailymail »

Victerius wrote: post #48
tricky wrote: post #26

You might be asking, why a pig? I don't know, but forever ago I wrote software for a cardiovascular imaging lab and pigs were their primary test subjects. I was like, "why pigs?" and the PI was like, "Imaging-wise, pig hearts aren't too different from humans. Plus, we can give them a heart attack in the scanner and not go to jail. Some labs use dogs. I just can't do that."

What ... happens to the pigs who get accidental heart attacks? Are they ...? Do they ...?

They get a "That'll do, pig" and a pat on the head.

Re: U.S. surgeons transplant pig heart into human patient

#120

Post by stickydink »

FundementalBrit wrote: post #115

Will make Jews and Muslims question their faith if this becomes a mainstream thing. Personally I think this is a amazing scientific achievement and will be following the story closely.

Question in what way?

There are plenty of people opting to die every year by refusing blood transfusions and transplants already.

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