Have you ever heard or read of clinical procedures where an animal organ or tissue is transplanted into the body of a human? Well that is what you call xenotransplantation, and it Is not as rare as you think.
Xenotransplantation is the transplantation of nonhuman tissues or organs into human recipients. For example; Chimpanzee kidneys have been transplanted into humans with renal failure, and in 1984, a baboon heart was transplanted into a newborn infant, who had hypoplastic left heart syndrome, and lastly, a baboon liver was transplanted into a patient with hepatic failure. Although with this success, there also comes concerns. According to UNO’S more than 107,241 American’s were waiting for organ transplants as of May 2010. In the lack of supply of human…show more content… Along with that, xenografts have been introduced as appropriate for infants, who indeed are still too small and fragile to accommodate organs from adults or other donors. Although not acceptable in some religions, for the most part, xenotransplantation is perceived acceptable in life-threatening situations. You might be wondering, how and where did xenotransplantation arise from? In 1906 Jaboulay transplanted organs from sheep, monkeys, and goats into humans. As time went on the attempts at xenografting and xenotransplantation were unsuccessful. In 1910 they had transplanted nonhuman kidneys into a man dying of renal failure, but ended up dying a day later. In 1932 they transplanted a kidney of a lamb into a man who had mercury poisoning who had only survived for nine days post-surgery. The interest in xenotransplantation waved away following the disappointing results and realization that transplantation failure was caused by some powerful unknown force which they identified as the immune system. Scientists and physicians did not gain interest again until the late 1950’s following successful xenografting of two identical twins, and again were deemed to be successful in