Medical science today has advanced to degree that enables procedures such as heart and kidney transplants--once complex and high-risk--to be now performed with mundane regularity. Why then, can’t this jump in the capability of medical prowess be extended to transplanting a human head?
Which is precisely the question that Dr Sergio Canavero has been pondering for a while now. Claiming to be completely capable of performing a head transplant, the Italian neurosurgeon talks of a procedure he refers to as HEAVEN (head anastomosis venture) and Gemini (the subsequent spinal cord fusion,) which he claims can successfully graft a head onto a new body. He describes it as a $20 million, 36-hour procedure that involves at least 150 people comprising a team of doctors, nurses, surgical technicians, psychologists, even virtual reality engineers.
Given the obvious risks such a potentially pioneering procedure would involve, it’s interesting to note that a volunteer has already emerged by way of a Russian software programmer, 31-year-old Valery Spiridonov. Spiridonov, who runs an educational software firm from his home in Vladimir, Russia, suffers from a disorder called Werdnig-Hoffman disease that results in continual muscle degeneration, often resulting in death. Seeing this procedure as his only salvation, he stated in an interview with The Atlantic that “Removing all the sick parts but the head would do a great job in my case. I couldn’t see any other way to treat myself.”
How to transplant a head
The operation would start by using an extremely sharp scalpel--one that has a blade so thin it is measured in angstrom and is nearly transparent--to slice through both the subject and the donor spinal cords. The subject’s head would then carried via a specialized crane--apparently fastened using velcro--to the donor body’s neck. The team would then proceed to swiftly fuse the spinal cord, blood vessels, muscle and all other biological complexity that comprises the human neck.
The newly-fused subject would then be kept in a coma for about a month, during which time the wounds at the numerous connecting joints would be able to heal. All the while, electrodes would be used to stimulate the spinal cord and effect new nerve connections within the subject and donor’s neck.
At the core of this procedure lies a new-generation chemical called polyethylene glycol (PEG), which has been allegedly found to foster unprecedented nerve regeneration and growth within spinal tissue of lab rats. If this is truly proven to be the case, it could be game-changing for treating patients suffering from all manner of spinal disorders from either genetic or accident-based precedents.
If all this sounds a lot like some kind of mad-scientist Frankenstein mumbo-jumbo, that’s because it may just be. Understandably, Dr Canavero’s work has been met with much scepticism and even blatant outrage for the very audacity of it all. From being called a “charlatan” to a “quack” and a “self-promoter and Looney Tune who’s peddling false hope”, many of his peers have not reacted kindly to his claims.
Given the staggering cost of such a procedure, Dr Canavero states that he plans of applying for a $100 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation and (according to Gizmodo,) if that doesn’t pan out he plans to ask Mark Zuckerberg or some other tech billionaire for the funds.
Either way, it is clear that the doctor has much to prove.
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