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Lawrence Faucette, 58, was dying from heart failure and ineligible for a traditional heart transplant when he received the genetically modified pig heart on Sept. 20.According to the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the heart had seemed healthy for the first month but began showing signs of rejection in recent days. Faucette died Monday.
In a statement released by the hospital, Faucette’s wife, Ann, said her husband “knew his time with us was short and this was his last chance to do for others. He never imagined he would survive as long as he did.”The Maryland team last year performedof a heart from a genetically altered pig into another dying man. David Bennett survived two months before that heart failed, for reasons that aren’t completely clear although
later were found inside the organ. Lessons from that first experiment led to changes, including better virus testing, before the second attempt.“Mr. Faucette’s last wish was for us to make the most of what we have learned from our experience,” Dr. Bartley Griffith, the surgeon who led the transplant at the University of Maryland Medical Center, said in a statement.
Attempts at animal-to-human organ transplants — called xenotransplants — have failed for decades, as people’s immune systems immediately destroyed the foreign tissue. Now scientists are trying again using pigs genetically modified to make their organs more humanlike.
Faucette, a Navy veteran and father of two from Frederick, Maryland, had been turned down for a traditional heart transplant because of other health problems when he came to the Maryland hospital, out of options and expressing a wish to spend a little more time with his family.Associated Press writers Seung Min Kim and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed reporting.
and throbbing percussion can sometimes brighten the mood.from the American rock band Garbage, “Let All That We Imagine Be the Light.” Due for release Friday, it’s the sound of frontwoman Shirley Manson pushed to the brink by health issues and the fury of our times.
The band’s familiar sonic mix provides a pathway out of the darkness, with heavy riffing and dramatic atmospherics accompanying Manson’s alluring alto.“This is a cold cruel world,” she sings on the crunchy “Love to Give.” “You’ve gotta find the love where you can get it.”