The Xeno Chronicles: Two Years on the Frontier of Medicine inside Harvard's Transplant Research Lab

Science News, Sept 10, 2005

THE XENO CHRONICLES: Two Years on the Frontier of Medicine inside Harvard's Transplant Research Lab G. WAYNE MILLER

In 2003, surgeon David Sachs of Harvard Medical School plunged his scalpel into Goldie the pig and transplanted the animal's heart into a baboon's chest. That operation, writes Miller, was a landmark for Sachs, his colleagues, and the field of xenotransplantation, or the process of putting organs from a member of one species into a member of another species. Goldie had been genetically manipulated to be without certain cellular molecules that incite rejection by the immune system. The procedure performed by Sachs' team was one step in a complex effort that researchers intend to culminate in the safe transplantation of animal organs into people whose own organs are failing. This tale of the triumphs, failures, and frustrations of Sachs' lab is combined with interviews of other "xeno" leaders and of several people facing death as they wait for human-organ transplants. Miller creates a vivid, personalized account of a controversial arm of biomedical science and delves into the ethics of exploiting animals for the sake of people. PublicAffairs, 2005, 256 p., hardcover, $26.00.