PIG-TO-BABOON HEART TRANSPLANTS SUCCESSFUL

Pig hearts could soon be tested in humans after scientists passed an important milestone by keeping primates alive for three months after transplanting the organs. Surgeons in Germany grafted pig hearts into five baboons and kept four of the animals alive for at least 90 days, with one still in good health for more than six months. In 2000, the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation suggested that human trials would be considered once 60 per cent of primates could survive for three months. Writing in the journal Nature, Bruno Reichart, a cardiac surgeon from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, said they had proved that transplanting hearts worked in one of mankind’s closest relatives, and that 195-day survival was a “milestone.”