25 years before US heart transplant with pig's organ, Assam doc had experimented with tragic outcome

Dr Dhaniram Baruah, a man 'ahead of his times', had achieved the near-impossible in 1997

As news about doctors in the US transplanting a genetically modified pig's heart into a human makes headlines around the world, one man remains unmoved.

74-year-old surgeon, Dr Dhaniram Baruah — who can no longer talk after having suffered a stroke — claims to have performed a similar surgery 24 year ago.

"You can't understand what he speaks now. But he told us that he is not really moved by what the US doctors have done. You all know that Baruah had transplanted a pig's heart into a human in 1997. He has repeatedly said that a pig's heart can be transplanted into a human but nobody believed what he has said all these years," Dalimi Baruah, who claims to be Dhaniram's long time research associate, told DH on Thursday.

Baruah, along with his assistant surgeon from Hong Kong, Dr Jonathan Ho Kei-Shing, had stirred controversy in 1997 when he claimed that he had transplanted a pig's heart and a liver on a 32-year-old man at the Dr Dhani Ram Baruah Heart Institute & Research Centre at Sonapur in the outskirts of Guwahati

Also Read | In a first, 57-year-old US man gets genetically-modified pig heart

The patient survived for a week but died due to multiple infections. The two doctors were arrested as xenotransplantation (transplanting organs from one species to another) was not allowed under the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994. The duo was held guilty of unethical procedure and culpable homicide under the act and was imprisoned for 40 days.

As the news spread about Maryland doctors' claim that their transplantation was the first such feat in medical history, many took to social media and recalled about Baruah's surgery from 24 years ago. "He did not get the kind of respect he deserved then. Now that the US doctors have done it, many have started praising him," a trader in Guwahati posted on Facebook.

A doctor in Guwahati said Baruah's work was not accepted by the scientific community as he did not get his findings scientifically peer-reviewed. He said there was also a significant difference between Baruah's act and that of the US doctors' feat. "The heart which the US doctors transplanted is that of a genetically modified pig," he said.

"Transplantation is the past for him. He is now researching on genetic engineering," Dalimi said talking about Baruah.

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