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Health

'Invisible' transplant organs now in sight

12 November 2008

PIGS really could save our bacon. Organs that are invisible to our immune system and so won’t be rejected when they are transplanted could be ready within 10 years, thanks to a faster way of genetically engineering pigs.

Progress towards these “xenotransplants” has stalled through lack of funding and problems with the cloning technique used to engineer the pigs. Now there is a simpler way. The new technique will alter the DNA in a boar’s sperm cells, and therefore in any future offspring, by injecting a virus into its testicles carrying the desired genes – such as those…

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