South Korean scientists have discovered ways to prevent monkeys rejecting organ transplants from pigs, paving the way for the use of animal organs and cells in humans, the Korea Times reported yesterday.
The ground-breaking research raises new hopes for millions of people needing heart, liver and kidney transplants, the English-language newspaper said.
The study was led by Hwang Woo-suk, a Seoul National University professor whose team of experts manufactured stem cells by cloning human embryos using human eggs from donors and skin cells from patients.
The stem-cell research announced last week marked a step forward in efforts to make it possible one day to transplant healthy cells into humans to replace cells ravaged by illnesses such as Parkinson's and diabetes.
The Korea Times quoted one of Hwang's fellow researchers, identified only as Kim, as saying the researchers are hoping to transplant hearts and insulin-producing cells from cloned miniature pigs into monkeys by the end of the year.
"We have created dozens of pigs embedded with human immunity genes since late last year. We plan to start transplanting their organs or cells into monkeys as early as late this year," Kim said.
The organs of pigs are almost the same in size as those of humans and their metabolic functions are also similar, he added.
‘ABSURD MISTAKE’: The election commission said that there had been a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations ran short of ballot papers South Korean riot police yesterday cleared protesters from a Seoul polling station after a 35-hour blockade sparked by a shortage of ballot papers during local elections earlier this week. Wednesday’s election was the first nationwide vote since South Korean President Lee Jae-myung took office following the ouster of Yoon Suk-yeol over his short-lived martial law declaration. Lee’s ruling Democratic Party swept most races, but failed to flip the crucial Seoul mayoral seat. The South Korean National Election Commission apologized, blaming a failure to anticipate turnout after 14 polling stations in Seoul ran short of ballot papers. Some polling stations stayed open until 10pm to
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
A Sherpa guide was found crawling to base camp on Mount Everest a week after he went missing and was reunited with his family, who had given up hope he would return. Dawa Sherpa was last seen on Friday last week descending the mountain, but he did not reach base camp even though his client did. The pair were among the last climbers on the mountain as the climbing season came to an end and the route was dismantled. Dawa was located by a cleaning crew on Thursday morning as he was crawling down the snowy slopes around the Khumbu Icefall, just above
Chinese authorities are snuffing out any remembrance of the deadly 1989 military crackdown on student-led pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, which happened 37 years ago yesterday, in a further tightening of a years-long campaign to erase what happened from public memory. Police told relatives of the victims they would not be allowed to visit a cemetery in Beijing on the anniversary of the crackdown, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Relatives of the victims visited the cemetery on the anniversary for more than 30 years to read memorial statements with police keeping watch, Amnesty International said. Hundreds of people,
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