New transplant research aims to salvage infected donated organs

FILE PHOTO: Aadil Ali runs a test on a pig's lung being inflated at a lab run by the University Health Network in Toronto, Ontario, Canada May 24, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Helgren

(Reuters) - Retired subway and bus driver Stanley De Freitas had just celebrated his 70th birthday when he started coughing, tiring easily and feeling short of breath. He was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, a severe scarring of the lungs, and put on the wait list for a transplant.

"Life became unbearable. From the time I got up in the morning until when I went to bed at night, I struggled through every breath of air," De Freitas, now 74, told Reuters by phone from his home in Toronto.