Human Head Transplant Coming Soon

There are a bunch of elite surgeons scattered all around the world that have been working on a medical first - a complete human head transplant. No, I'm not talking about a movie, this is the real thing.

There's a guy in Russia with an incurable disease, Werdnig-Hoffman. It's a form of spinal atrophy, and there isn't any cure for it. Valery Spiridonov is 30 years old and apparently quite willing to let them see if they can save his life by transplanting his head onto the body of another person, presumably dead from some sort of head injury, while the rest of the donor is in pretty much healthy condition.

Meanwhile, the team of surgeons have been itching to try out a new procedure they've been working on, and an Italian surgeon by the name of Sergio Canavero is going to take on the task of chopping off Mr. Spiridonov's head and playing a 21st Century Dr. Jekyll, putting it onto the body of somebody else. Yes, they say it's really going to happen. Nobody, of course, is sure the final result will be successful, but at least one person, Mr. Apiridonov, has high hopes that it will.

The operation is supposed to take a total of 36 hours or so and the operating room will be really crowded with about 150 medical staff giving their support. The plan is to take Mr. Spiridonov’s head along with the new body and cool them both down to a pretty chilly point to slow down the rate of cell decomposition. After that, doctors are supposed to hook up each of the major blood vessels in the neck to machines. That's supposed to keep everything flowing just right while they're transferring the head part.

Then they plan to sever the spinal cord and attach Mr. Spiridonov's head to the new body. Dr. Canavero says he'll use a water-soluble glue to connect the cells together and then connect the muscles, nerves and blood vessels.

Assuming everything goes as planned, the doctors say it will take up to a year for Mr. Spiridonov’s spinal cord to fuse completely with the new body. Of course, nobody knows what the brain is going to think about all this and the different electrical and chemical signals will probably be a problem, but Mr. Spiridonov and Dr. Canavero say they're ready for the procedure anyway.

Staff for the procedure will be hired starting in June and the operation may be scheduled as early as next year. I wonder if it will be televised?