Science Media Centre

UPDATE: Living Cell Technologies, a New Zealand-based biotech firm, has just announced that it is commencing trials on a potentially revolutionary diabetes treatment. The treatment will be based on xenotransplantation – the transplantation of animal cells, tissues or organs into human patients. In this case, LCT has been granted approval to transplant pig islet cells [...]

There’s always a certain cringe factor when we start talking about taking tissue or even whole organs from animals and transplanting them into humans. It’s yet another area of science rife with questions of ethics and safety. But as the the Journal of the American Medical Association points out in a very good four page [...]