The supposed breakthrough progress further after the two surgeons find a Russian national to volunteer for the procedure.
Russian volunteer, Valery Spiridonov, is suffering from a very rare Werdnig-Hoffmann Disease. The disease confined him to his wheelchair all his life. For Spiridonov, this is his treat to himself.
But how will the doctors proceed with the transplant?
The hard (and really gruesome) part is severing the head of both the recipient and the donor. First, to allow survival of cells without oxygen supply, both donor and recipient bodies will need to be cooled down. Then Polyethylene Glycol, a chemical to regrow cells, will be used to connect the spinal cords of the two bodies.
The real challenge will be finding the right patients or volunteers for the transplant. There is a need to find a body donor who is preferably already brain dead (in that case, the doctors will have to get approval from the family) and a recipient who is mentally stable yet with a deteriorating body.
The highly debated procedure will likely to happen in 2017.
