For several thousands of years, people have been eager to live for a long time or live forever. They think we need to find the medicinal herb for the eternal life, but nowadays, doctors say that we need to transplant artificial organs or other animal's organs. South Korean scientists and doctors are going to transplant pancreatic islet from pig.

 Few years ago, scientists succeeded transplanting a pig's organ to a monkey. They transplanted heart and cornea to the cynomolgus monkey, and it survived for 51 days. The last record was 43 days, and they stepped up their records for eight days. Also, after this transplant, they processed pancreatic islet to the monkey which has diabetes. The pancreatic islet is located in pancreas, and it secretes insulin, which controls blood sugar levels. diabetes patients already ingected an insulin shot to lower sugar level, and that insulin came from the pig's islet. So, if the transplant of pancreatic islet succeed for high survival rate, people who have diabetes can live for a long time. We call it xenotransplantation. However, there is a problem, and it is the rejection. 

▲ The pig`s organs which can help people to live longer

 There are four main rejections; hyper acute, acute, cell-mediated and chronic rejection. The hyper acute and acute rejections can take effect right after xenotransplantation, and cell-mediated and chronic rejections takes effect for a long time. Nevertheless, the hyper acute rejection and acute rejection are very risky that can kill people. So scientists cannot transplant the organ of other animals. Nonetheless, now, they found a pig which has a gene that causes excessive production of membrane cofactor protein, and that helps prevent hyper acute and acute rejections. Other two rejections cannot be removed, but they can be treated with medical care. So, now, we can transplant the other animal's organs after a few more tests.

 Many people oppose the xenotransplantation because of the ethical problem, and they do not want to transplant other animal's organs to their body. However, many scientist now prove how the safety is improving. After few years, humans can get the eternal life with xenotransplantation.