Babies overcome blood type differences

Medical researchers in Canada say they have found that some babies may be able to accept heart transplants from donors of a different blood group.

The researchers say there has been an 80 per cent recovery rate in 10 such transplants in babies.In the complex world of organ transplants, there has long been a simple rule that both donor and recipient must be from the same blood group.But in a groundbreaking study in 2001 a Canadian team of researchers showed that that rule does not apply to heart transplants performed in very young babies.In research published in the journal Nature Medicine, the same researchers now say they have discovered that the immune systems of those patients actually get reprogrammed.After the transplant, the scientists say the young patient’s immune system thinks that both its own original blood type and the donor’s blood type are its own.(Source: BBC, Oct 2004)