Transplants from animals

Transplantation from one species to another is called xenotransplantation. For people, it’s called animal-to-human transplantation.

In 2004, the National Health and Medical Research Council decided to stop animal-to-human clinical trials for five years. If it is allowed to go ahead after that time, pigs will be the preferred donor animal for use in humans, because their organs are so similar to ours. The pigs would be genetically modified so that their cells, tissues and organs would be less likely to be rejected when transplanted into humans.

Other experimental procedures aim to use xenografts (cells or tissues transplanted from other species) to treat illnesses such as AIDS, cancer, diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

The first recorded instance of xenotransplantation was in 1682. Part of a dog’s skull was used to repair the broken skull of a Russian nobleman. The first successful organ xenotransplant occurred in 1963. Chimpanzee kidneys were transplanted into 13 patients; however, only one survived more than nine months. The first heart xenotransplant occurred in 1964, using a chimpanzee heart. In 1984, baby Fae received a baboon heart and lived for 21 days. In addition to primates, organs for xenotransplantation have been taken from pigs and sheep.

Concerns regarding xenotransplantation include:

  • transplant tissue may carry unknown, latent (hidden) infections; when introduced into the recipient, these could be activated and lead to infection
  • previously animal-specific infections could become pathogenic to humans.

Work is underway to assess the extent of these risks.

You can find out more about xenotransplantation at: http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health_ethics/health/xeno.htm and http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/media/media/rel02/xenofact.htm