Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero has claimed that researchers in China have successfully carried out a head transplant on a monkey.
Italian surgeon Sergio Canavero has claimed that researchers in China have successfully carried out a head transplant on a monkey. In 2015, the maverick surgeon caused a worldwide storm when he revealed his plan to attempt a human head transplant to New Scientist. Now, working with other scientists in China and South Korea, he claims to have moved closer to that goal with a series of experiments in animals and human cadavers.
According to Canavero, researchers led by Xiaoping Ren at Harbin Medical University, China, carried out a head transplant on a monkey. The doctors connected the blood supply between the head and the new body, but did not attempt to connect the spinal cord. Canavero says the experiment, which repeats the work of Robert White in the US in 1970, demonstrates that if the head is cooled to -15 °C, a monkey can survive the procedure without suffering brain injury.
“The monkey fully survived the procedure without any neurological injury of whatever kind,” Canavero said, according to New Scientist.
He added that the monkey was only kept alive for 20 hours after the procedure for ethical reasons. “We’ve done a pilot study testing some ideas about how to prevent injury,” says Ren, whose work is sponsored by the Chinese government. He and his team have also performed experiments on human cadavers in preparation for carrying out the surgery, he says.
