A Chinese medical team successfully transplanted a pig's kidneys and liver into a brain-dead patient, with organs functioning for nearly five days, potentially paving the way for solving global organ shortages through xenotransplantation.
A renowned Taiwanese liver transplant surgeon, Chen Yao-li, has had his medical license revoked for illegally brokering nine Taiwanese patients for liver and kidney transplants in China, earning NT$14.66 million. He was previously sentenced to two years probation and fined NT$5 million for violating the Organ Transplant Act.
This article examines Vladimir Demikhov, a Soviet surgeon who conducted controversial two-headed dog experiments between 1954 and the early 1960s, grafting the head and upper body of smaller dogs onto larger hosts. While most animals survived only days, Demikhov also performed pioneering heart and lung transplants (1946), orthotopic heart transplants (1951), and coronary artery bypass surgery (1953). His work influenced Christiaan Barnard's 1967 human heart transplant, though he received little recognition during his lifetime, only becoming a professor in 1998, the year he died at 82.
Scientists at ShanghaiTech University have developed CS-101, a base-editing gene therapy that successfully cured five Chinese patients with beta-thalassaemia. The treatment restored haematopoietic function, raising total haemoglobin and fetal haemoglobin levels, freeing patients from lifelong blood transfusions. China has 30 million thalassaemia gene carriers while the global total reaches 350 million.
