Organ Transplantation - Biotechnology and Your Health: Pharmaceutical Applications - page 127

three-week survival, and her ultimate death were watched by the
whole world. After her death, it was learned that a simple ABO
incompatibility, rather than the fact that the donor was a baboon,
had doomed the procedure.
Two baboon-to-human liver transplants were performed by
transplant pioneer Dr. Thomas Starzl in 1992. When both patients
died of overwhelming infections within two months, Starzl decided
that further organ xenotransplantation should be stopped and more
research done.
In 1995, Jeff Getty, a 38-year-old AIDS activist from San
Francisco, received a baboon bone marrow transplant from a team
from the University of Pittsburgh and the University of California
to try to replace his immune system, which had been destroyed by
HIV. The baboon cells survived for just a few weeks, but Getty
lived for several more years.
Stop and Consider
Why are nonhuman primates no longer considered as possible organ
donors for humans?
Organs from Non-primates
Researchers began to look elsewhere for possible nonhuman
donors. The animal that seemed most promising for xenotrans-
plantation was the pig. Pigs are easy and relatively inexpensive to
breed, and they produce large litters of offspring. Although the
usual breeds of pigs grow to a very large size, tipping the scales at
1,000 pounds (454 kg) or more, breeds of miniature swine grow
to about 300 pounds (136 kg) as adults. Their organs are just the
right size for humans. The anatomy and physiology of the pig
kidney, in particular, makes it especially suitable for transplanta-
tion into humans. Whether pig livers would work in humans is
unknown. Pigs can be bred and raised in sterile facilities to reduce