Xenotransplantation, the process of using animal organs for human treatment, is outlandish even today. But when and where did such an idea find its origins, and what does it mean for the future of medicine? Take a listen as we jump from patron saints of medicine, to Icarus’s wings, to pig heart transplants.

Produced and edited by Alice Lidman and Nimisha Gautam

Art by Savannah Flores

Music from Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

Special thanks to the Milstein Program and the Investigative Biology lab at Cornell University for our recording equipment and software.

Sources:

https://nyulangone.org/news/successful-heart-xenotransplant-experiments-nyu-langone-set-protocol-pig-human-organ-transplants
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4684730/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-exactly-did-the-first-human-patient-to-receive-a-pig-heart-die-180980361/
https://actavetscand.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1751-0147-45-S1-S65
https://biotechhealth.com/xenotransplantation/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8682823/#CIT0001
https://unos.org/transplant/history/#:~:text=The%20beginning,were%20begun%20in%20the%201980s.
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-health-products/biologics-radiopharmaceuticals-genetic-therapies/activities/fact-sheets/revised-fact-sheet-xenotransplantation.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5935127/#:~:text=Heterotopic%20xeno%2Dheart%20survived%20for,heart%20survived%20for%2057%20days.

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