The Xeno Chronicles: Two Years on the Frontier of Medicine Inside Harvard's Transplant Research Lab

About this book

Dr. David H. Sachs of the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital is not a household name, but within medical science, he is a giant. An immunologist and surgeon, Sachs has made significant contributions in the field of organ transplantation. But Sachs's real passion— and the possibility for a revolution in medicine—lays in xenotransplantation: using animal parts to treat sick people. "Xeno" might save the lives of untold thousands. It could also lead to a multi-billion-dollar business. Millions of dollars have been invested in Sachs's work in the hopes of staking a lucrative claim in the future of medicine. As The Xeno Chronicles begins, Sachs's decades of work and hopes have all converged on a genetically engineered, cloned pig named Goldie, whose organs have been designed not to be rejected by their recipients. Experiments begin but just as Sachs begins to get unprecedented results, he loses his biggest financial support and the collaboration of an important outside lab. He is almost sixty-two. Time and money are starting to run out. G. Wayne Miller's absorbing, dramatic narrative account of a brilliant scientist's attempts to achieve a breakthrough offers an illuminating look into the minds, hearts, labs, and practical realities of those on the very forefront of medical science. Based on exclusive and unprecedented inside-the-lab access, The Xeno Chronicles clarifies both how science works and the ethical issues it raises through an absorbing human story and intimate portrait of Sachs, his colleagues, and patients.