The man who was given a genetically modified pig heart two months ago has passed on. The 57 year old David Bennett, who had a terminal heart disease, was the first person in the world to get a heart transplant from a genetically-modified pig. However, he survived for two months following the surgery in the US.
Bennett received his transplant on 7th January and his heart performed very well for several weeks without any signs of rejection but his condition began to get worse days ago, and was announced dead by the University of Maryland Medical System doctors in Baltimore on 8 March.
It is said that Bennett knew the risks attached to the surgery, acknowledging before the procedure that it was ‘a shot in the dark’.
Doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center were granted a special dispensation by the US medical regulator to carry out the procedure, on the basis that Bennett – who was ineligible for a human transplant – would otherwise have died.
Bennett came to the hospital in the eastern US state of Maryland in October 2021. He had already been bedridden for six weeks leading up to the surgery, attached to a machine which was keeping him alive.