Pak envoy to US hails Pakistan-born scientist on world's first pig-to-human heart transplant

• After first pig-to-human heart transplant, Ambassador of Pakistan to US Dr Asad Majeed Khan holds virtual meeting with Pakistan-born scientist Dr Mohiuddin. 
• Envoy congratulates scientist for making all Pakistanis proud with landmark medical achievement. 
• Dr Mohiuddin works at centre of xenotransplantation research and is involved in grafting animal organs into dying patients.

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Ambassador of Pakistan to US Dr Asad Majeed Khan congratulated Dr Mohammad Mohiuddin for achieving "a ground-breaking milestone" in medical history after the world's first pig-to-human heart transplant was done in the US recently.

"In a virtual meeting earlier today I congratulated Dr.Mohammad Mohiuddin on his path breaking transplant surgery in the field of Xenotransplantation," said the Pakistani ambassador in a tweet.

"I told him how proud all Pakistani Americans were on this remarkable achievement by a fellow community member," he wrote.

Dr Muhammad Mansoor Mohiuddin is a Pakistani-born doctor, who is the director of the Cardiac Xenotransplantation Programme at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. 

His work at the centre of xenotransplantation research involves grafting animal organs into dying patients. The scientist has spent the last 30 years trying to figure out how to increase the chances of survival for terminal patients in need of a heart transplant.

On January 11, Ambassador Asad Majeed Khan had tweeted about the landmark achievement by the Pakistan-born scientist. "A moment of pride for Pakistani American community: Surgeons at Maryland University have successfully transplanted genetically modified pig’s heart into a human being," said the ambassador in a tweet on January 11.

"A ground breaking milestone by a Pakistani American doctor Dr Muhammad Mansoor Mohiuddin."

Talking to TRT World in November last year, Dr Mohiuddin had said, “Just in the United States, 150,000 people are waiting for different organ transplants. Unfortunately, many of them will die waiting because there’s no alternative available.”

“Our idea is to somehow find that alternative,” he pointed out.

Dr Mohiuddin is a practising Muslim and believes it’s okay to use pig organs if it can help save human life.

Regarding pig hearts, Dr Mohiuddin said, “We don’t want to change that pig into a human. We want to do minimal changes that would be enough for the heart not to go through rejection."

“So the first goal is to keep this pig heart (viable) long enough that a human heart becomes available for transplant," he asserted. "But if a pig heart works fine then there’s no reason to take it out.”

Mohiuddin moved to the US in the early 1990s after graduating from the Dow University of Health Sciences in Karachi.