NEW YORK – Pakistan-born Dr Muhammad M. Mohiuddin Tuesday made history with first successful transplantation of a genetically modified pig’s heart into the body of a human.
The historic surgery was a major achievement for the doctors and researchers of the University ofMaryland School of Medicine (UMSOM).
Dr Muhammad M. Mohiuddin, MD, who is scientific and program director of the Cardiac Xenotransplantation Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM), was directly involve in the surgery.
Mohiuddin is also one of the leading experts on transplanting animal organs, known as xenotransplantation. He also serves as the professor of surgery at the UMSOM.
“This is the culmination of years of highly complicated research to hone this technique in animals with survival times that have reached beyond nine months. The FDA used our data and data on the experimental pig to authorize the transplant in an end-stage heart disease patient who had no other treatment options,” Dr Mohiuddin said according to a statement released by the UMSOM and the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC).
The Pakistan-born doctor received his MBBS degree from Dow Medical College, Karachi, in 1989. He moved to the US and then received his first fellowship in transplantation biology at University of Pennsylvania and later fellowship in bone marrow transplantation at Institute of Cellular Therapeutics, Drexel University.
Dr Mohiuddin said that the information and findings that the team came across during the operation will benefit the medical community in the future.
“The successful procedure provided valuable information to help the medical community improve this potentially life-saving method in future patients,” he said
Dr Mohiuddin assisted Dr Bartley P. Griffith, MD in transplanting the pig heart into the body of David Bennett, a US resident.
