Doctors voice virus fears over xenotransplants

As the medical techniques to allow successful transplantation of genetically altered animal organs into human patients continue to develop, concerns have been raised that xenotransplantation might introduce animal viruses into the human population.

At a meeting in London last week the pressure group Doctors and Lawyers for Responsible Medicine called for a long term moratorium on such preparatory research “in the interests of public health.”

While transgenic baboons have been bred in the US, the Cambridge based company Imutran, founded 12 years ago, has now raised four generations of transgenic pigs— the …