Sergio Canavero, a surgeon in Turin, Italy, believes that full-body transplants are in the near future.
Canavero has outlined a plan to attach a living person's head to a donor body, saying the necessary procedures are "not far off," The Guardian reports. The doctor told New Scientist that full-body transplants could help people who suffer from terminal diseases.
The Guardian notes that one of the main hindrances to the transplant is the question of ethics, since most scientists "would almost certainly not approve experiments in primates to test whether the procedure works." But Canavero recognizes that people will disagree with the idea, and said he hopes to spark debate about ethics in medicine.
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Other scientists believe that technological limits mean the transplant won't happen in the next two years. Scientists don't know how to reconnect spinal nerves, so the living heads may not yet be able to connect motor function with the donor bodies.
Canavero is expected to present on the proposed surgery at a Maryland meeting of neurological surgeons in June.
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