Editorial Reviews:
The plight of a patient waiting months, sometimes years, for an organ transplant is one of the most heart-wrenching predicaments confronting medicine today. But the current critical shortage of human donor organs has had one positive consequence: it has stimulated promising new research into the field of xenotransplantation--the transplantation of organs from one animal species to another.
In Xeno: The Promise of Transplanting Animal Organs Into Humans, David Cooper and Robert Lanza explore what may become one of the greatest medical advances of the 21st century. As scientists genetically engineer animal organs to evade the problems of rejection, we can expect a tremendous increase in xenotransplantation. This book recounts the several historical attempts to transplant animal organs into humans, and draws attention to the immense potential and promise of this form of therapy. The problems which remain, and recent breakthroughs in overcoming rejection and in "humanizing" pig organs for transplantation, are fully discussed. The authors also provide a fascinating consideration of the social and ethical questions posed by such procedures. Which patients should be the first to be offered this new form of therapy? Will transplanted animal organs transfer infectious viruses to the human recipient, and will they then be passed on to the community at large? Can society afford the major increase in healthcare expenditure that will result from our ability to provide a limitless number of donor organs?
With profound implications for human health and longevity in the next millennium, Xeno is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of medicine.
If you are what you eat, what do you become after accepting a pig heart transplant? Physicians David K.C. Cooper and Robert P. Lanza examine this question and more in Xeno: The Promise of Transplanting Animal Organs Into Humans. They're on the cutting edge of this long-desired procedure, working for Harvard Medical School and Advanced Cell Technology, respectively, and look carefully at the scientific, ethical, legal, economic, and political issues appended to the promise of nearly unlimited organs and tissues for the needy. Ever since doctors transplanted monkey glands into elderly men--to questionable effect--early in the century, the prospect of using healthy animal organs to replace our own has fascinated and frustrated the medical profession, which has a long-standing joke that xenotransplantation is the future of medicine, and always will be. Cooper and Lanza present compelling arguments that this future might literally come tomorrow, with advances in genetic engineering and sensitive immunological hacking that could extend the lives of transplant patients many years without the use of cruelly immunosuppressive medications. Some problems are a bit bizarre--pigs might have to be exercised regularly for their hearts to be in good condition for transplant, and will have to live in such pristine, germ-free conditions that several major religions might have to reconsider the pig's status as an unclean animal. With animal rights crusaders, technophobic alarmists, and uncertain patients to contend with in addition to challenging immunological and physiological problems, transplant surgeons have their work cut out for them, but the authors of Xeno are optimistic that pigs will soon replace dogs as man's best friend. --Rob Lightner
Customer Reviews:
 This book easily lives up to recent reviews
I just finished reading XENO - it easily lives up to the reviews I read in "Nature" and "The New Scientist." I wish all medical books were this thoughtful (and easy to read). Easily lives up to recent reviews
I just finished reading XENO - easily lives up to the excellent reviews I read in Nature and the New Scientist.  A sales pitch fraught with inaccuracies
If you liked what Song of the South did for American history, you will love Xeno's take on transplantion. Written by two individuals with a vested interest in promoting xeno-transplantation, the book glosses over the dangers inherent in putting organs from the animal thought to have the largest number of endogenous viruses into a severely and permanently immunosuppressed patient and then releasing that person in a unsuspecting world to be a human vector. The book alternates from blantant inaccuracies to sins of omission to the most impossibly naive spin on the abysmal history of this failed psuedo-science. I would love to think that the authors were just optimists but their resumes make it obvious that they have an enormous financial interest in keeping the dollars infused to their dangerous attempts at pseudo-science. This book is pure propaganda and the normally prestigous Oxford Press should be ashamed to have it on their list. Overview of xenotransplantation
This book gives the reader a comprehensive and understandable overview of the exciting field of xenotransplantation. The authors discuss the pro's and contra's of xenotransplantation in great detail and manage to keep the reader fascinated. A must-read for those interested in medical science and progress! Xenotransplantation, medical challenge of the new century
Written by two world experts in the field, this book gives an excellent introduction and overview of one of the most exciting medical challenges of this new century. The authors explain in details and also with great clarity the historical and scientific aspects or organ transplantation. The reader understands the reasons why the medical community is searching for new methods to solve the problem of organ shortage. The medical challenge becomes a fascinating adventure.
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