The International Congress of the Society of Transplantation in Paris came to an end, where specialists talked a lot about the animal organ transplants that will soon multiply. Interview (vo trad off) by Fritz BACH, Professor of Immunology Boston and Vienna, on the revolution that the transplantation of pig organs could bring on humans. Testimonies of two patients, in dialysis for years, and who do not seem afraid to receive one day, a pig kidney. For Henri KREIS, head of Necker’s Transplant Service: "Until we change the brain, we have not changed the human being".
Animals have always been directly involved in the progress of medicine. In South London, surgeons at Dulwich Hospital say they will be able to graft animal organs onto humans in two or three years. A hope for the thousands of patients who die every year due to lack of donors. Professor Michael BEWICK explains (vo trad off) that there are more and more requests for organs. "There is pressure in this direction, until an alternative solution is found," he stresses. Professor Bewick’s team believes that this solution has been found through the development of an anti-rejection pig fabric filter. Professor Jean François BACH (Necker Hospital) explains how pig fabric filters could prevent rejection.
Organ transplants of animal or xenograft origin, should be able to compensate for the shortage of human organs in a few years. At CHU Hautepierre in Strasbourg, testimony of Carole POPIC, transplanted kidney for ten years. Professor Philippe WOLF, surgeon, regrets having to limit the indications of transplantation and sometimes abusive for certain pathologies such as liver cancers, for lack of organs. Following the research carried out on pork, where the heart of these animals is "humanized", the first transplants are no longer very far. Interview with a confident doctor: "I think it’s a reality at 15".
In Lyon, a team of researchers supported by the Mérieux Foundation is currently working on pig and calf embryos to try to "humanize" the organs of certain animals for transplantation on humans. Professor Michel FRANCK, National Veterinary School of Lyon, explains the objective and the stakes of this experiment.