Man-made pigs.

The procedure referred to in the first programme, in which a patient was kept alive by external use of a pig's liver, is shown. But the ultimate goal is a successful heart xenotransplant. In pursuit of this, an experiment was carried out to transplant a pig's heart to a baboon (procedure shown), in the course of which a range of anti-rejection drugs were tested. But the experiment failed. A further experiment succeeded insofar as the baboon survived for 30 days. In 1992 Immutran scientists seeking ways of making the pig's heart more acceptable to the human immune system bred the first transgenic pig, Astrid. But thousands of pigs were slaughtered in the process, bringing Immutran to the attention of Animal Rights activists. Animal Rights also complained of cruelty in transplanting pigs' kidneys to baboons, involving the death of baboons through kidney rejection. Some baboons survived the procedure for 40 days or more, but must survive for 6 months before a pig-human kidney transplant can be considered. In the USA, Infigen Inc. pursue research with transgenic pigs, attempting to eliminate the pig genes which cause the human immune system to reject pig organs. The pig cloning process, in which human genetic material is introduced, is shown. Among those taking part in this programme are Prof. John Wallwork (Papworth Hospital) and Dr. David White (Immutran).