{"id":2632,"date":"2016-09-26T04:51:56","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T04:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/?p=2632"},"modified":"2016-09-26T04:51:56","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T04:51:56","slug":"the-surgeon-who-wants-to-perform-a-head-transplant-by-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/2016\/09\/26\/the-surgeon-who-wants-to-perform-a-head-transplant-by-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"The surgeon who wants to perform a head transplant by 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prof Sergio Canavero has told Newsbeat he’s got lots of volunteers from the UK who want it done.<\/p>\n

The procedure would see the patient using a donor body and having their head fitted to it.<\/p>\n

However gruesome it sounds, Prof Canevero is confident the technology is now in place to make it a reality.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
Video caption<\/span>A doctor i hoping to complete the first ever head transplant<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“It’s not a decade, it’s not years and I expect to have everything ready to roll by the end of 2017,” he tells Newsbeat.<\/p>\n

\n

Morerelated stories<\/span><\/h2>\n
\"Zion<\/a><\/p>\n

The boy with the double hand transplant<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\"Sophie<\/a><\/p>\n

‘I was just waiting to be saved’<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\"Sophie<\/a><\/p>\n

‘I was waiting for someone to die’<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“Of course when it will take place depends on the availability of a suitable brain donor.<\/p>\n

“The last facial transplant took several months to be brought to fruition because there was not a suitable donor at the time, but the the tech will be there.”<\/p>\n

\"Sergio<\/div>\n

Despite the huge risk in having the operation, the surgeon says he’s got lots of willing people who want to have the transplant.<\/p>\n

“The list of patients is so long and several of the patients are from the UK.<\/p>\n

“The UK does have the possibility to do this sort of surgery and it might really take place in the UK, or in Germany or in France.”<\/p>\n

The patient<\/h2>\n
\"Valery<\/div>\n

Valery Spiridonov is 31 and suffers from Werdnig-Hoffman’s – a muscle-wasting disease which has left him in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n

Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, he says he’s willing to having his head transplanted onto a different body.<\/p>\n

“Today my life is pretty tough, I need to rely on people to help me every day – even twice a day because I need someone to take me off my bed and put me in my wheelchair.<\/p>\n

“It makes my life pretty dependent on other people.<\/p>\n

“If there is a way to change this, I believe it should be tried and used.”<\/p>\n

How could a head transplant work?<\/h2>\n

The surgeon claims the transplant would take 150 medical staff 36 hours to carry out the operation.<\/p>\n

He says the first step would be to freeze the head and body to stop brain cells from dying.<\/p>\n

The neck would then be cut and tubes connecting key arteries and veins fitted.<\/p>\n

Then comes the tricky part – cutting the spinal cord. It’ll be done with a special knife made from diamonds because of their strength.<\/p>\n

The head is then moved onto the donor body and the spinal chords fused together with a special type of glue.<\/p>\n

Muscles, veins and organs are then reattached and the skin is stitched together.<\/p>\n

Testing the science<\/h2>\n
\"Brain<\/div>\n

Professor Canavero says they’ll be testing the procedure first on brain dead living donors.<\/p>\n

“We will simply cut the surgical cord, and over 6 to 12 hours, monitor their recovery and neuro-physiological conduction (electrical impulses).<\/p>\n

“We now have a better substance that can renew the severed spinal cord.<\/p>\n

“Something that when you put it there you work the miracle of reconnecting.<\/p>\n

“The results that we got are so astounding.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes people get to the emergency department and the surgical cord is cut 90 per cent. We imitated this scenario with a dog.<\/p>\n

“We applied this [substance] and the dog made an amazing recovery in two weeks.<\/p>\n

“It was running, and I mean running.”<\/p>\n

‘Science Fiction’<\/h2>\n
\"Head<\/div>\n

Most medical experts around the world say his theories are ‘science fiction’ and a head transplant is simply not possible.<\/p>\n

But Professor Canavero tells Newsbeat he’s confident he can successfully carry out the procedure.<\/p>\n

“When everything will be set I expect a 90% chance of success.<\/p>\n

“90% means that the patient reawakens without damage and starts walking within one month or moving during physiotherapy.<\/p>\n

“Right now we are bringing hope to people who have been let down by Western medicine.<\/p>\n

“No more lies. We need this because medicine has no way to manipulate the genes, manipulate the biology.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prof Sergio Canavero has told Newsbeat he’s got lots of volunteers from the UK who want it done. The procedure would see the patient using a donor body and having their head fitted to it. However gruesome it sounds, Prof Canevero is confident the technology is now in place to make it a reality. Video captionA doctor i hoping to complete the first ever head transplant “It’s not a decade, it’s not years and I expect to have everything ready to roll by the end of 2017,” he tells Newsbeat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2634,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2632\/revisions\/2634"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}