Five little piggies and PERV

There was mixed news last week for companies working on pig-derived organs for transplant. The good news is the technology is working. The bad news is that there is evidence that pig retroviruses can be active across species, throwing up a question mark on the long term future of xenotransplantation research.

Last week, successful pig cloning experiments were reported by two groups, PPL Therapeutics plc (LSE:PTH, Roslin, U.K.) and the Japanese National Institute of Animal Industry (Tsukuba Norin Danchi, Japan), which published their results in Nature and Science,respectively (see B13). The PTH group had made its announcement previously (see BioCentury, March 20). ...