David Bennett Sr., the first man to receive a heart from a genetically modified pig, is dead.
Gatekeepers News had in January reported that Bennett, 57, who had life-threatening heart disease, had agreed to receive the experimental pig’s heart after he was rejected from several waiting lists to receive a human heart.
His failing heart was replaced with that of a genetically altered pig in a groundbreaking operation in Baltimore, United States.
Bennett’s transplant was initially considered successful but he, however, died on Tuesday afternoon at the University of Maryland Medical Center, two months after the transplant surgery.
It was not clear whether his body had rejected the foreign organ. “There was no obvious cause identified at the time of his death,” a hospital spokeswoman said.
Medical officials at the Hospital did not give further details on the cause of his death, because his physicians are yet to conduct a thorough examination. They plan to publish the results in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
Dr. Bartley Griffith, the surgeon who performed the transplant, said the hospital’s staff was “devastated” by the loss of Mr Bennett.
“He proved to be a brave and noble patient who fought all the way to the end,” Dr. Griffith said.
“Mr Bennett became known by millions of people around the world for his courage and steadfast will to live.”
The heart transplant was one of a number of pioneering procedures in recent months in which organs from genetically altered pigs were used to replace organs in humans.
The process, called xenotransplantation, offers new hope for tens of thousands of patients with failing kidneys, hearts and other organs, as there is an acute shortage of donated organs.
