It's been a month since a Maryland man became the second person to receive a transplanted heart from a pig --- and hospital video released Friday shows he's working hard to recover.

A month after a pig heart transplant, man works to regain strength with no rejection so far::It’s been a month since a Maryland man became the second person to receive a transplanted heart from a pig — and hospital video released Friday shows he’s working hard to recover.

  • cynar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    83·
    1 year ago

    Pig organs are approximately the same size and configuration as human ones. They also share a very similar immune system and biochemistry. We also have experience breeding and genetically modifying them. This makes them the easiest option to modify for human use. Still not easy, but easiest.

      • cynar@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        The pig is the result of a lot of selective breeding. It’s pure fluke that it matches well enough to use their organs. The wild boar is the ancestor of the pig, and it’s less suited to organ use.

        • Jeena@jemmy.jeena.netEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          Technically the wild boar and the pig have the same ancestors but we changed the environment for the pig and bread selectively while the environment of the wild boar only changed slightly so natural selection probably didn’t need to change as much as we did to the pig to be adapted to the environmental changes of today.