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World’s First Head Transplant Is Happening This Year

Dr. Sergio Canavero is dedicated to go through with the world's first human head transplant in 2017

Italian neurosurgeon Dr. Sergio Canavero is dedicated to fulfill the promise he made last year and go through with the world’s first human head transplant in 2017.

Dr. Sergio Canavero says that a man from China will be the first human to undergo a head transplant, an operation he has been planning for years that has been met with skepticism within the medical community.

Last year Canavero shook the world when he promised to go through with the first ever successful attempt to transplant a human head, or depending the way you are looking at it, the world’s first full body transplant.

It was clear that he was serious about his claims when he tried to recruit American surgeons at last year’s annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurological and Orthopaedic Surgeons. Today, he says that he has assembled a team of skilled surgeons from China, South Korea and Russia, and all that remains is a green light, and of course, funding.

However, while Canavero had previously announced that a Russian volunteer who suffers from a Werdnig-Hoffman disease, which causes degeneration of alpha motor neurons in the spinal cord and eventually paralysis, now says that the first head transplant patient patient will be a Chinese man.

One of his collaborator, Dr Xiaoping Ren of China’s Harbin Medical University, has claimed that he successfully performed a similar operation on a monkey in January, but had to euthanize it for ethical reasons just 20 hours later.

The monkey, as he claims, had only a head transplant, while Dr. Canavero’s operation will include the full transplant of the spinal cord as well.

Canavero and his team are eyeing a date around Christmas for this operation, and while the world are standing by believing it to be a big publicity stunt, it seems like his determination might actually lead to an attempt.

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