Note: The Icon recently invited members of the Bluffton University Communication 105 class to submit material for publication. The following is the third of a four-part series of "opinion pieces" by Whitney Zumberger, a member of the class. We invite viewer comments on this series.

Xenotransplantation-Any procedure that involves the transplantation into a human recipient of either live cells, tissues, or organs from a nonhuman source.

The development of xenotransplantation is driven by the fact that the demand for human organs for clinical transplantation far exceeds the supply. The first experiments were with transplanting chimpanzee kidneys into humans were conducted in 1963 and 1964.

One of the patients who received chimpanzee kidneys lived for nine months.

Currently ten patients die each day in the United States while on the waiting list to receive lifesaving vital organ transplants. Recent evidence has suggested that transplantation of cells and tissues may be therapeutic for certain diseases such as neurodegenerative disorders and diabetes, where human materials are not usually available.

Although the potential benefits are considerable, the use of xenotransplantation raises concerns regarding the potential infection of recipients with both recognized and unrecognized infectious agents and the possible transmission into the general human population.

Of public health concern is the potential for cross-species infection by retroviruses, which may be latent and lead to disease years after infection. Moreover, new infectious agents may not be readily identifiable with current techniques, and could cause trouble in the progression of xenotransplantation.