(Yicai Global) Nov. 21 -- Professor Ren Xiaoping at Harbin Medical University has clarified media reports stating that he and Italian neurologist Sergio Canavero had completed the world's first head transplant, he said in a press briefing in Harbin, Heiliongjiang province.

Ren said the reports of a successful operation on a dead body were inappropriate, stating, "It will still be some time before we can do a head transplant. I don't know when."

Prof. Ren Xiaoping from the Harbin Medical University in China said that he and Canavero practiced connecting the spinal cord and blood vessels on the head of one corpse with the body of another in an 18-hour operation, previous reports said.

Spinal cord regeneration is the most difficult part of possible head transplantation, and surgeons worldwide have so far failed to find a solution for it. However, Ren appears confident, declaring "We've found a very good solution to spinal cord injuries. It's really an incredible breakthrough, but we made it."

The professor did not elaborate on further details.

The 56-year-old medical professor is a deputy director of orthopedics and head of the hand microsurgery center at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, and a Ph.D. supervisor.

He performed the first replantation surgery in Heilongjiang province in northeast China. In 1999, he took part in the world's first successful hand transplant at the Hand Microsurgery Center, School of Medicine, Louisville University.

Ren returned to Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang, in 2012, where he tested head transplants on mice for the first time the following year, and one of the subjects survived for one day after the operation.