Chinese Surgeon To Perform First Human Head Transplant In 2017

In December 2017, there is going to be a medical marvel as Chinese Surgeon Ren Xiaoping teams up with Italian neurosergon Sergio Canavero to perform a very controversial procedure. It would be the first time ever, that a man's head would undergo a transplant. Russian Valery Spiridonov, 30, was diagnosed with a genetic muscle-wasting condition called Werdning-Hoffmann disease, and volunteered for the highly complex procedure despite the risk associated with it, a report said.

The surgical operations which will last 36 hours is set to take place at a hospital affiliated to Harbin Medical University in Heilongjiang, China.

It is said that Dr. Ren Xiaoping is the only person in the world able to lead this project.

However, there have been several objections by ethical bodies to the controversial procedure, but team has reportedly received over $2 million in academic and government funding to carry out research, and eventually perform the operation.


Scientists will attempt to cut off the head of Spiridonov and attach it to a healthy body.
"When I realized that I could participate in something really big and important, I had no doubt left in my mind and started to work in this direction," Spiridonov, a Russian computer scientist," said Spiridonov, a Russian computer scientist.
"My decision is final and I do not plan to change my mind." He continued.

Spiridonov says he wants a chance of a new body before he dies and he is willing to sacrifices everything, even his life to see this becoming a reality.

Dr. Ren has conducted 1,000 head transplants on mice since 2013. The surgeon says he plans to carry out similar operations on primates before the end of 2015.

Inset: Chinese surgeon Xiaoping Ren first successfully carried out a head transplant on mice in 2013 and since then has repeated the 10-hour procedure 1,000 times. Transplants are seen in C, D and E. Credit: WSJ

The team is said to not be in a hurry to get into the theatre, it will take about two years to plan the entire procedure. Only when the experts are 99% certain of a successful operation will they give the green light and by the looks of things, if all goes well, by December 2017, the course of medical technology would be changed forever.