Transplanting animal cells into human beings produces benefits today

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By Brian Carnell

Sunday, August 9, 1998

Keeping with the Xenotransplantation theme, there have been a number of stories recently about real world applications for transplanting animal cells into human beings as well as transplanting genetically altered human cells into human beings.

• In late May, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new skin graft product called Apligraf intended to be used initially in the treatment of venous skin ulcers. Apligraf is composed of human skin cells combined with collagen cells taken from cattle. The human cells come from the foreskins of newly circumcised infants.

  Venous skin ulcers affect thousands of Americans each year and require multiple surgeries to correct. Apligraf will speed the healing and recovery time after surgery. The product is currently undergoing clinical trials to discern its effectiveness in treating burns, diabetic ulcers and eventually bed sores.

• At the end of July, Imutran, one of the leading companies doing xenotransplantation work, announced it would begin using pig livers to act as dialysis machines for human beings.

  "What we are thinking of doing is using the liver as a temporary support, outside the body, as a sort of dialysis machine for patients in liver failure to allow the doctors to buy time until a human organ becomes available for transplantation," Dr. Corrine Savill, Imutran’s CEO, told BBC radio.

  About 50,000 people in Europe alone are waiting for transplants, with that number growing at 15 percent a year according to a Reuters News Service report.

• In May a 20-year-old college student had a historic operation after his heart was removed from his body and fixed using animal tissue.
  
  Guy Altmann, a Texas A&M student, had a malignant tumor the size of a lemon lodged in his mitral valve. During the six-hour operation, his heart was stopped, removed and the tumor cut away. The mitral valve was rebuilt using heart tissue from a cow.

  "I feel a lot better than when I cam in," Altmann told the Associated Press.

• And what about the fear expressed by animal rights activists that xenotransplantation could lead to some outbreak of a previously unknown disease? An August report in the New Scientist magazine suggests that there have been no signs of transmission of such diseases in patients who have received cells from pigs for pancreatic disorders and Parkinson’s disease.
  
  "The findings, based on screening samples from patients exposed to pig tissue, provide the first compelling evidence that dormant pig viruses do not spread to humans, causing new and incurable diseases," the magazine reported.
  
  More research will need to be done, of course, but so far the worst fears of those opposed to xenotransplantation and genetic engineering are proving unfounded.

Sources:

Drug that helps heal skin wounds wins FDA approval. Reuters News Service, May 26, 1998.

Company plans to use pig livers as human dialysis machines. Patricia Reaney, Reuters News Service, July 30, 1998.

Man has rare surgery: his heart is removed, fixed with animal tissue, put back in his chest. Mark Babineck, Associated Press, May 22, 1998.

Transfer of animal cells to humans shows promise. Reuters News Service, August 5, 1998.

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