Dhaniram Baruah

Dhaniram Baruah is an Assamese heart surgeon known for his work in the field of xenotransplantation. He is popularly known as India's Pig Heart Doctor. On 1 January 1997, he became the first heart surgeon in the world to transplant a pig's heart in a human body. Although the recipient died subsequently, it was a precursor to the first successful pig-to-human heart transplant performed 25 years later by Bartley P. Griffith in January 2022. While Griffith used a genetically modified pig's heart, Barua had transplanted a normal pig heart. Barua is also the founder of Dr Dhaniram Baruah Heart Institute & Research Centre. He can only communicate through hand gestures after a brain stroke left him unable to speak.