猪心脏移植，三年内或可实现

移植外科医生表示，猪心脏移植可以在3年内完成

Pig hearts could be available for human transplants within the next three years. This is not some off-the-wall prophecy or a number picked out of thin air, but the prediction of one Sir Terence English – the now 87-year-old surgeon who performed the UK's first successful heart transplant in 1979.

猪心脏可以在未来三年内用于人体移植。这并不是一个稀奇古怪的预言，也不是凭空捏造出来的数字，而是一位名叫特伦斯·英格利希爵士(Sir Terence English)的医生的预言。这位现年87岁的外科医生在1979年完成了英国第一次成功的心脏移植手术。

Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, English said his protege Christopher McGregor, who assisted him with that first heart transplant, is planning to carry out the first pig-to-human kidney transplant later in the year. If all goes well, it may just pave the way for similar operations involving more complex organs.

在接受《星期日电讯报》采访时，英格利希爵士表示，他的助手克里斯托弗·麦格雷戈(Christopher McGregor)正计划在今年晚些时候进行首例猪肾的移植手术。如果一切顺利，可能会为涉及更复杂器官的类似手术铺平道路。

"If the result of xenotransplantation is satisfactory with porcine kidneys to humans then it is likely that hearts would be used with good effects in humans within a few years," English told The Telegraph.

英格利希爵士表示：“如果猪肾异种移植的结果令人满意，那么心脏在未来几年内，很可能将对人类产生良好的作用。”

"If it works with a kidney, it will work with a heart. That will transform the issue."

“如果对肾脏有效，对心脏也有效。这个问题将得以改变。”

Xenotransplantation is the process of transplanting an organ of one species into the body of another. Now, McGregor has developed a technique to tweak the pigs' genes to prevent immune system retaliation. According to English, it could provide the answer to the UK's (and the US') long transplant waiting lists.

异种移植是将一个物种的器官移植到另一个物种体内的过程。现在，麦格雷戈已经开发出一种技术来调整猪的基因，以防止免疫系统的报复。据英格利希表示，它可以为英国(和美国)长期的移植等待名单提供答案。

According to The Telegraph, there are roughly 280 people in the UK on the heart transplant waiting list. Meanwhile, in the US, there are more than 110,000 people waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant of some kind – and in 2017, an average of 18 patients died every day during that wait.

据《每日电讯报》报道，英国大约有280人在心脏移植候诊名单上。与此同时，在美国，有超过11万人在等待某种拯救生命的器官移植——在2017年，平均每天有18名患者在等待期间死亡。

Compared to, say, a kidney, heart transplants are extremely hard to come by. First, they must be in healthy condition. Second, they must be removed and transplanted within hours. And third, they must be a match (biologically and size-wise) for the patient.

与肾脏相比，心脏移植是非常困难的。首先，他们必须处于健康的状态。其次，它们必须在数小时内被移除和移植。第三，它们必须与患者匹配(生理上和大小上)。

Pigs' hearts could prove a suitable alternative because they are anatomically similar to humans'. It is why they are so often used in medical trials. Take, for example, a study that looked into the possibility of using stem cell grafts to heal damaged tissue. And while on-demand pig transplants are still the stuff of fiction, scientists have been making headway when it comes to transplanting porcine organs into primates. Last year, a baboon survived more than six months after receiving a pig implant that had been gene-edited to prevent an immune system attack.

猪的心脏可能是一个合适的选择，因为它们在解剖学上与人类相似。这就是为什么它们经常被用于医学试验的原因。举个例子，一项研究探讨了利用干细胞移植修复受损组织的可能性。尽管随需应变的猪移植仍然是虚构的，但科学家们在将猪器官移植到灵长类动物身上已经取得了进展。去年，一只狒狒在接受了经过基因编辑以防止免疫系统攻击的猪植入物后，存活了六个多月。

It was then euthanized, so we do not know what would have happened to it in the months since. It is also worth pointing out that the four other baboons underwent the surgery failed to survive the half-year mark.

随后它被实施了安乐死，所以我们不知道几个月后会发生什么。同样值得指出的是，另外四只接受手术的狒狒也没能活过半年。

In a similar vein, scientists are also delving into the brave new world of chimeras – i.e. an organism or tissue melded from the DNA of two or more species. This includes pig-human chimeras that could one day be used to grow organs for transplant (even if, for now, they are yet to make it past the embryo stage) and, according to some reports, human-monkey chimeras.

同样，科学家们也在探索嵌合体的美丽新世界——即由两个或两个以上物种的DNA融合而成的有机体或组织。这包括猪与人的嵌合体，它们将来有一天可能被用来培育用于移植的器官(即使目前它们还没有进入胚胎阶段)，以及一些报道所说的人与猴的嵌合体。

The use of pig organs and chimeras will no doubt raise a number of ethical questions, but they could also offer a solution to the big (and growing) dilemma cardiovascular disease presents. As for English's prediction, time will tell if it plays out.

使用猪的器官和嵌合体无疑会引发一系列伦理问题，但它们也可能为心血管疾病带来的巨大(而且越来越大)困境提供一个解决方案。至于英格利希的预测，时间会证明它是否正确。