Opinion: Here are some questions about the pig heart transplant that people actually should be asking
By Arthur Caplan, Laura Kimberly, Brendan Parent, and Tamar Schiff,
The Washington Post
| 01. 14. 2022
Arthur Caplan, Laura Kimberly, Brendan Parent and Tamar Schiff are members of the transplant ethics and policy working group in the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
Those who closely follow research in the field of transplantation have been expecting that someday a genetically edited pig organ would be transplanted into a living human. But when the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore announced that on Jan. 7 a genetically edited pig heart had been given to a human recipient, the news came as a surprise.
The operation, known as a xenotransplant, was widely described in the media as a “success,” but there are many questions that need answers to justify undertaking what is a hugely risky experiment.
Maybe the Maryland team already has good answers, and maybe the case will be reported in detail in peer-reviewed journals so that other medical teams can learn from their pioneering effort. But since this transplant was done as an emergency rescue, not a clinical trial, the data acquired are likely to be only anecdotal and perhaps...
Related Articles
By Jonathan Matthews, GMWatch | 12.11.2025
In our first article in this series, we investigated the dark PR tactics that have accompanied Colossal Bioscience’s de-extinction disinformation campaign, in which transgenic cloned grey wolves have been showcased to the world as resurrected dire wolves – a...
By Jenny Lange, BioNews | 12.01.2025
A UK toddler with a rare genetic condition was the first person to receive a new gene therapy that appears to halt disease progression.
Oliver, now three years old, has Hunter syndrome, an inherited genetic disorder that leads to physical...
By Simar Bajaj, The New York Times | 11.27.2025
A common cold was enough to kill Cora Oakley.
Born in Morristown, N.J., with virtually no immune system, Cora was diagnosed with severe combined immunodeficiency, a rare genetic condition that leaves the body without key white blood cells.
It’s better...
By Rachel Hall, The Guardian | 11.30.2025
Couples are needlessly going through IVF because male infertility is under-researched, with the NHS too often failing to diagnose treatable causes, leading experts have said.
Poor understanding among GPs and a lack of specialists and NHS testing means male infertility...
