LEADING head transplant surgeon has performed the world's first successful human head transplant on a corpse - and says it won't be long until he can do the same to a living human.
Professor Sergio Canavero, dubbed 'Dr. Frankenstein', successfully reconnected the spine, nerves and blood vessels of the corpse in an 18 hour operation in China.
He said:“A full head swap between brain dead organ donors is the next stage.
"And that is the final step for the formal head transplant for a medical condition, which is imminent.”
In 2015 Professor Canavero, former director of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group, announced that he intended to transplant the head of a paralysed man onto the body of a dead donor.
Valery Spiridonov, a 30-year-old terminally ill man who suffers from Werdnig-Hoffmann disease, has volunteered for the controversial surgery.
His skull will be attached to a completely different body when he undergoes the operation.
But other scientists have condemned Professor Canavero's experiments as "disturbing."
Professor Jan Schnupp, from the University of Oxford, said the procedure conjures up “gory, Frankenstein imagery”.
“The chances that a person who has their head transplanted onto another body will be able to gain any control over, or benefit from, that grafted body are completely negligible,” he added.
“The expected therapeutic value for the patient would be minimal, while the risks of graft rejection related side effects, or simply death as a consequence of a mishap during the operation, are huge."
Whilst Professor Catherina Becker, from the University of Edinburgh pointed out that the head controlling motor function cannot be assessed in a corpse - meaning there is no way of knowing whether it would occur in a living human who undergoes the transplant.
The £14million experimental transplant is likely to take 36-hours and will involve over 150 doctors and nurses.
Source: thesun
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