A transplant neurosurgeon, who confidently believes that the so-called impractical and unattainable task of human head transplant can be accomplished, paving way to curing many of the daunting medical disorders across the globe, is Dr. Sergio Canavero. Prof Canavero is currently serving as the Director of Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group and has for the past 30 years focused on making the first head transplant possible. While the concept of head transplant, in a way, had entered the medical arena through the experiments of Charles Claude Guthrie, Vladimir Demikhov and Robert J. White, they had unfortunately not succeeded in taking the idea further implementing it in humans. Professor Canavero, who was inspired by Dr White’s work, had begun his very early research during med school itself.
The Italian mastermind, who has also introduced surgical cortical brain stimulation for Parkinson disease, the vegetative state and stroke recovery, has over 100 peer reviewed publications and several books to his credit including Head Transplantation and the
Quest for Immortality.
With a firm determination to successfully conduct his first human head transplantation experiment, scheduled for December 2017, he joined hands with Dr Ren Xiaoping of China. The man who volunteered for the procedure is 30-year-old Russian Valery Spiridonov,
who suffers from the extremely rare, progressive Werdnig-Hoffmann disease.
There is a storm of questions which comes
from media and the medical experts such as what are the challenges to conduct the surgery, would there be ethical concerns, what would be the consequences of the surgery and much more. Let’s hear from the man behind ‘head transplantation,’ Dr. Sergio Canavero himself.Read his exclusive interview below:
