British researchers make transplant advance

Medical researchers in Britain have made an important advance towards enabling organs from animals to be successfully transplanted into humans.

Up to now, the main barrier has been the rejection of the foreign tissue -- a process which can only be suppressed by heavy doses of drugs which also cripple the body's immune system.

Researchers in London, however, have now succeeded for the first time in stopping this rejection process in mice which have had pig tissue transplanted into them.

The BBC science unit says this could eventually open the way for a similar method to be employed with human patients.

Success would help get round the severe human organ donor shortage which currently costs thousands of lives.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service