What immune problems does xenotransplantation face?
The human immune system is the product of hundreds of millions of years of development. Provided by Nature, it protects us against infection but reacting to anything it doesn’t recognize as part of the human body (self). We live in an ocean of microorganisms (bacterial, viruses, etc.), both helpful and harmful. Without an immune system, however, every microorganism is potentially lethal and without constant effective treatment, we would die within days. But the human immune system was designed to attack anything it recognizes as “foreign”. It was never designed in mind to accommodate potentially life-saving transplanted organs. The human immune system has been shown to have four different rejection processes: Hyperacute: The body quickly destroys the organ, often within hours, because it recognizes a specific sugar molecule called gal [galactose-(alpha 1,3)-galactose] and other key molecules on the organ cells that it considers “foreign”. Delayed (vascular): Over months, the blood vess
