Xenotransplantation

Transplantation from one species to a foreign one.

The rationale for xenotransplantation has included the short supply of human organs for transplantation.</P> The first surgeon to do an animal-to-human heart transplant was Dr.

James D.

Hardy.

After doing the first human lung transplant in 1963, Hardy did the first animal-to-human heart transplant in 1964 at the University of Mississippi.

The transplant involving a chimpanzee heart was done three years before the first human-heart transplant (by Christiaan Barnard).

Perhaps the most famous case of cross-species transplantation was that of a heart from a baboon to Baby Fae in 1984, performed by Dr.

Leonard Bailey at Loma Linda University, California.

Baby Fae lived for 20 days after the operation.</P> The first to show that nonhuman organs could be transplanted to humans and function for a significant period of time was Dr.

Keith Reemtsma (1925-2000).

At Tulane University in New Orleans Dr.

Reemtsma in 1963 and 1964 gave chimpanzee kidneys to 5 patients in the first chimpanzee-to-human transplants.

The recipients died (of infection) from 8 to 63 days after receiving a chimpanzee kidney.

Then, in 1964 Reemtsma transplanted a kidney from a chimpanzee to a 23-year-old teacher.

She lived with it for 9 months until succumbing to overwhelming infection.

The prefix 'xeno-' means foreign.

It comes from the Greek word 'xenos' meaning stranger, guest, or host.

(Xenophobia is fear of foreigners).

Xenotransplantation is synonymous with cross-species transplantation.