The Bacon of Life: How Pigs Might Save Your Heart (and Your Fry-Up)
Scientists grow human-like hearts in pig embryos; so your next transplant might just oink before it beats.
Now this is a subject I’ve not chewed over in this column before. It’s also not a subject I ever thought I’d be scribbling about while sipping my morning coffee next to Mrs G and our cat; who both looked suitably horrified when I mentioned it at breakfast. Vegetarians and Mrs G, you might want to go scream into a lettuce for a few minutes.
Pigs. We all know they’re good for bacon, ham sandwiches and terrifying city folk when they break out of a pen and waddle down the high street like a four-legged riot. But apparently, if some brilliant Chinese researchers are to be believed, pigs have now been upgraded from tasty breakfast companion to part-time organ farm. Yep, you read that correctly, instead of just filling your sandwich, your local pig might one day keep your heart beating too.
Allow me to explain before you cancel your fry-up in disgust. Some lab-coated geniuses have grown beating human-like hearts inside pig embryos. Actual beating bits of cardiac plumbing built mostly from human cells, squelching away inside a little piglet embryo like something out of a sci-fi horror flick I’d pretend not to watch with Mrs G. They survived for three weeks, which in scientific terms is apparently spectacular; although any pig farmer will tell you that three weeks is just enough time for a piglet to learn how to eat your shoes when you’re not looking.
The clever plan here is that these little chimera piggies might one day become walking organ donors, solving the monstrous shortage of human hearts for transplant. Imagine that, no more tragic stories of kids waiting months for a donor while politicians argue about whose fault it is. Instead, a helpful pig wanders in, volunteers a heart and still has enough bacon left for your Sunday breakfast. Talk about a multi-talented animal.
Before you think this is all theoretical nonsense, allow me to swing a stonking fact hammer at your forehead. Over 7,500 people in the UK are currently waiting for organs, 42 of them are children who need a heart. Every year, hundreds die because the NHS, brilliant though it is at dispensing sticky plasters and free paracetamol, cannot magic up a supply of spare hearts. So if pigs can step in to plug that gap, I say let them. They’ve been giving us sausages for centuries, a few spare ventricles is the least they can do.
Of course it’s not all so gloriously simple. This pig-heart experiment lasted just 21 days before nature gave it the hoof. Scientists also noticed that only part of the heart was made of human cells, which might be a teensy issue when you’re trying to avoid immune rejection and the recipient’s body deciding it’s more fun to wage a full-on war on the new organ. But let’s not nitpick. Pigs growing people bits is by my unscientific standards, an utterly bonkers milestone worth celebrating.
Now naturally, there are questions. Ethical ones, legal ones; and the always awkward dinner party question: what happens if a pig escapes with a half-human heart and mates with another pig? Are we breeding pig-men? Will they demand votes and queue jump for Greggs sausage rolls? I’m reliably assured by people in lab coats that this is ‘highly unlikely’. I’m less convinced, but I’m still here for the organ-donating porkers.
So what next for these porcine multi-taskers? If pigs can grow hearts, then surely we can upgrade them to grow spare kidneys, livers, or even a spare pancreas for when you eat too many Bakewell tarts. Personally, I’d like to see pigs trained as mobile phone chargers; just plug your iPhone into a snuffling sow at the pub. Or maybe they could double as living air purifiers, snuffling up all the filthy city fumes while plotting to donate a lung or two later on.
Look my point is pigs have always been more than bacon with legs. They’re intelligent, adaptable and now apparently, the secret to ending transplant waiting lists. Yes, there’s a minefield of ‘what ifs’, ‘should we’s’ and ‘dear God, what have we done’s’, but if you ask me, a world where pigs help us live longer is worth the odd moral headache.
So next time you see a pig, don’t just picture breakfast. Picture a little life-saving hero wearing wellies, brimming with replacement parts and possibly a spare kidney for your Uncle Dave. Now that’s progress worth a toast; preferably one with plenty of crispy bacon on the side.
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Chris Geiger, Author of The Cancer Survivors Club.
Daily Dose of Disbelief!
Bsky: @chrisgeiger.com
Bsky: @thecancersurvivorsclub.com
Bsky: @dailydoseofdisbelief.com
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