According to a report not yet made public but that the «MIT Technolgy Review» was able to consult, the researchers are on the way to an explanation. “We’re beginning to understand why he died,” said Bartley Griffith, a transplant surgeon at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who performed the transplant. The porcine heart would have been infected with an endogenous virus, called cytomegalovirus, common in pigs. For Dr. Griffith, this virus “may have been the actor, or might be the actor, who started all of this”.
The surgeon refers to previous research by baboons which found that the operation failed regarding four times faster when the virus was present.
For David Bennett, declared ineligible to receive a human transplant, it was the operation of the last chance. “I want to live. I know it’s quite risky, but it was my last option, ”he explained.
