In 1997, Dhani Ram Baruah, a cardiac surgeon in Assam tried to transplant the heart and lungs of a pig into a patient. The patient died and Baruah was arrested for breaking the law governing human transplantation. Despite the fact that pigs provide pharmaceutical-grade heparin and heart valves for transplantations, whole organ transplantation between different animals usually fail due to genetic incompatibility.
At that time, the genome of neither man nor pig was known. While human genome was deciphered in 2003, two studies published on November 14 provide some insight into pigs’ genome. Although it cannot be said if the information would have helped Baruah’s patient, the researchers claim the studies provide crucial data for improving pig stock and biomedical research.
