JUNE 26 (Reuters) — Valery Spiridonov, the Russian man who suffers from a muscle wasting disease and wants to become the world’s first patient to undergo a full head transplant, said on Thursday (June 25) he feels “optimistic” about the operation and wants it to happen as soon as possible.
Spiridonov has just returned from a trip to the United States where he met Italian neurosurgeon Dr Sergio Canavero who unveiled a plan to perform the operation within the next two years.
“I feel pretty optimistic, I feel excited, because the conference went as we planned. We convinced most of the people in the reality of this technology and now it’s only time for preparations, for some law and the contracts, all this paper stuff mostly. So I am pretty sure this will happen and we are working to make this come true as soon as possible,” he said at a news conference held in his native town of Vladimir, some 200 kilometers (120 miles) east of Moscow.
30-year-old Spiridonov is a computer scientist and suffers from the Werdnig-Hoffman disease, a rare form of spinal muscular atrophy which causes severe muscle weakness.
Life expectancy for people with his condition is short, with few sufferers reaching adolescence or young adulthood.
At 30 years old, he says his condition is rapidly deteriorating.
Spiridonov, who has a mother and an older brother, says his family supports his decision to have an operation.
“You know, my family more than anyone sees the difficulties I face daily, therefore they understand my mood and my aspirations and support me to some extent and fully in what I am doing, though of course they fear for me and think that I live quite an active life and therefore maybe I should not hurry. I agree with them, I am not in a hurry. I hope that first we will make sure that all of this will be relatively safe and then we will take further steps,” Spiridonov told journalists.
At the a medical conference in Annapolis, Maryland, Spiridonov met Dr Canavero for the first time, previously only communicating through Skype.
Spiridonov said he was satisfied with the meeting but so far he has no binding agreements with the Italian surgeon and is open to other proposals.
“I am not legally tied to Canavero in any way. At the moment there are no principal agreements between us, or signed documents, so if there are other proposals, other technologies, including exoskeleton – why not?” he said.
Dr Canavero says the surgery may happen within two years.
The procedure would see Spiridonov’s head being attached to the body of a donor through spinal cord fusion (SCF).
It’s an operation which will require a team of more than 100 medical workers and could take 36 hours to complete.
Asked whether he would prefer to live in the West if the operation were successful, Spiridonov said, “I do not make it a priority to work in Russia or outside Russia. Of course, I would like to stay in Russia, because I have friends here, the situation here, the mentality, are familiar to me, so I hope that our scientists will get not less but may be even more support than Canavero, in order for everything to happen here. Therefore I don’t have a goal to continue life with the new body elsewhere.”
Dr. Canavero, who is still seeking funding for the project, says his optimal date for the operation would be Christmas Day 2017.
