内容摘要：“He always wanted to help people,” said Miller-Duffy, who struggled with the choice but is proud of her brother’s last act. “This tragic death, this fast short death — something good has come out of it.”

“He always wanted to help people,” said Miller-Duffy, who struggled with the choice but is proud of her brother’s last act. “This tragic death, this fast short death — something good has come out of it.”

David Ayares, president and chief scientific officer of Revivicor, looks at pigs at the company’s research farm near Blacksburg, Va., on May 29, 2024, where organs are retrieved for animal-to-human transplant experiments. (AP Photo/Shelby Lum)Company video shows piglets running around behind the protective barrier, chewing on toys and nosing balls back and forth.

They were born in sort of a porcine birthing center connected to the facility, weaned a day or two later and moved into their super-clean pens to be hand-raised. In addition to the on-site shower, their caretakers must put on a new protective suit and mask before entering each suite of pig pens — another precaution against germs.The pig zone is surrounded on all sides by security and mechanical systems that shield the animals. Outside air enters through multiple filtration systems. Giant vats hold backup supplies of drinking water. Standing over the pig rooms, VonEsch showed how pipes and vents were placed to allow maintenance and repair without any animal contact.It will take years of clinical trials to prove whether xenotransplantation really could work. But if it succeeds, United Therapeutics’ plan is for even larger facilities, capable of producing up to 2,000 organs a year, in several places around the country.

The field is at a point where multiple kinds of studies “are telling us that there’s no train wrecks, that there’s no immediate rejection,” Ayares said. “The next two or three years are going to be super exciting.”The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A government-sponsored junk food ban in schools across Mexico took effect on Saturday, officials said, as the country tries to tackle one of the world’s worst obesity and diabetes epidemics.

, take a direct shot at salty and sweet processed products that have become a staple for generations of Mexican schoolchildren, such as sugary fruit drinks, packaged chips, artificial pork rinds and soy-encased, chili-flavored peanuts.Dr. Greg Poland, who studies vaccine response at Mayo Clinic and was not involved in the new study, said he’s not convinced that a combo shot would be popular. And while flu comes in seasonal waves, COVID-19 has been spreading throughout the year, Poland said, posing challenges for how to time the shots to keep protection strong.

He’d also like to see data on how well the new shot protected people from infection and hospitalization.The findings are based on measuring antibodies in participants’ blood after 29 days, an indication of short-term disease protection.

Last week, Moderna pushed its target date for the vaccine’s approval to 2026 after the Food and Drug Administration requested a more direct measure: how much the shot lowered the risk of disease.“I agree in this case with FDA that efficacy data are important to see,” Poland said.