A man set to have the world’s first head transplant has told Sky News the operation does not worry him, adding: “We are making science.”
Russian Valery Spiridonov suffers from a muscle wasting disease and is on Saturday (June 13) meeting an Italian neurosurgeon who claims he can perform a head transplant.
Dr.Sergio Canavero wants to transplant Spirodonov’s head onto another body as soon as 2017.
The proposal has been widely condemned by other doctors.
Some have suggested the plan is an elaborate hoax.
Canavero will cool Spiridonov’s head with ice to help the brain survive once it is removed from its old blood supply.
The head will then be cut off and reattached to the donor body in stages.
The biggest challenge will be fusing the spinal cord, something that has never been achieved before.
But Canavero will drench the two ends of the cord in a chemical called polyethylene glycol, which may encourage the fatty sheath around nerve cells to stick together.
The blood vessels and muscles would then be stitched into place. Spiridonov would spend the next three to four weeks in an artificial coma to immobilize his head.
But, according to Canavero he should be able to walk within a year.
He plans to test the technique on brain-dead organ donors. He has admitted he may struggle to win ethical approval to carry out the operation in the West.
The operation, which would require a team of more than 100 medical workers, could take 36 hours to complete
