Dr. Sergio Canavero, the man who wants to perform the first ever human head transplant, has announced that he has successfully performed the full procedure on a monkey.
This comes after he has spent some time perfecting his technique using monkey and human cadavers, or so he told New Scientist. His team also worked with mice, severing their spinal cords and sticking them back together—the key process for a successful human head transplant.
The team has a video (Warning: NSFW) showing that the mice whose spines they severed were able to regain limited use of their limbs after a few weeks—apparently thanks to their use of polyethylene glycol (PEG) to cleanly cut the spine. PEG can be used to preserve nerve cell membranes, and helps the spinal connections re-fuse after the fact.
“These experiments prove once and for all that simply using PEG, you can see partial recovery,” Canavero said.
Canavero’s team claims that the live monkey head transplant was equally successful, publishing this (potentially graphic) photo of a monkey with a transplanted head:
Credit: Surgery/Ren/HEAVEN-AHBR
Canavero reports that the surgery was performed at Harbin Medical University in China, and that the monkey survived the procedure “without any neurological injury of whatever kind”—as cooling the head to about 60 degrees Fahrenheit prevented brain damage.
However, the monkey was killed 20 hours following the surgery for “ethical reasons”.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Obviously, there is a lot of room for skepticism here—especially because Canavero has made a lot of claims that other scientists haven’t been able to personally review for veracity, whether in person or through peer review in journals. Because of this, some scientists believe that Canavero’s claims are “science through PR”—attempts to create a lot of buzz and distract people from more reliable science.
Canavero did add, though, that he will publish details of his work in the journals Surgery and CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics in the upcoming months. And a monkey head transplant isn’t something completely out of left field—in fact, the first successful monkey head transplant was performed more than 35 years ago by Robert J. White. Unfortunately, that monkey only lived for nine days, as the body rejected its new addition.
And now that he claims to have worked with a living monkey, Canavero believes the procedure for humans could be ready some time before the end of 2017—and may be the cure for complete paralysis down the line. One major milestone he must first achieve, however, is acquiring the funds necessary to carry out the surgery on Valery Spriridonov, the 31-year-old the Russian man who has volunteered for the procedure.
Canavero said that he intends to ask Mark Zuckerberg for help in funding the surgery, and emphasizes it’s feasible.
“I would say we have plenty of data to go on,” said Canavero. “It’s important that people stop thinking this is impossible. This is absolutely possible and we’re working towards it.”
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Feature Image: Thinkstock
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