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NEW YORK - In what is believed to be a medical first, a healthy human heart was taken from a living person and transplanted into another human, doctors in Baltimore said Tuesday. The donor, a 28-year-old man whose lungs had been destroyed by cystic fibrosis, then received the heart and lungs of an accident victim. In the series, completed early Monday, the heart and lungs of the unidentified accident victim who died at the University of Maryland Hospital were removed there, chilled and carried to nearby Johns Hopkins Hospital where they were given to a patient with cystic fibrosis, a common inherited disease. But because his heart was healthy and he and his doctors did not want to waste it, the organ was transplanted into a third person, 38-year-old John Couch of Yardley, Pa. Surgeons permanently attached the new heart ``piggy-back`` to Couch's ailing heart. He had been waiting for a heart transplant since last fall, according to Dr. William A. Baumgartner, who directs the heart-lung transplant program at Johns Hopkins

The researchers reported in the May issue of the Journal of Virology on the differing impacts the strains had on human cells in the laboratory. Two strains, which had been isolated from each of two individuals with AIDS, killed cells in test tubes. A third strain isolated from a child with an early phase of AIDS called AIDS-related complex, or ARC, produced only temporary injury with apparent healing of the cell. A fourth strain, which may have been a mixture of isolates from other AIDS patients, showed both kinds of behavior. (All these viruses were strains of the HIV-1 virus, the one believed to be causing AIDS in most parts of the world. A second, related virus has also been found in West Africa.) Those results were intriguing. But there was no way for the Yale scientists to know if the results would be duplicated in the body. Dr. [George Miller] said in an interview that one way to learn more about the finding in the laboratory would be to develop new genetic recombinants of AIDS virus strains, test their virulence in cells, and then try to map where the recombinations occurred on a molecular level. Scientists using such methods, Dr. Miller said, might ''determine whether a change at one site in the AIDS virus produced a killer strain and whether a change elsewhere in the virus might produce a weakened strain.'' Another way would be to isolate the DNA genetic material from various strains of the AIDS virus and then to cause mutations in different parts of the viruses to determine which mutations produced ''killer versus non-killer life-styles,'' Dr. Miller said

Examining blood samples from homosexual men, some of them AIDS virus carriers and some not, the scientists also found that people with a different genetic variant of the same protein were highly susceptible to AIDS infection and disease

Examining blood samples from homosexual men, some of them AIDS virus carriers and some not, the scientists also found that people with a different genetic variant of the same protein were highly susceptible to AIDS infection and disease. Experts in AIDS and in genetics called the report exciting and of immense potential significance for the understanding of how the AIDS virus attacks the body and how it might be countered. AIDS is caused by a virus that attacks and destroys key elements in the immune system. AIDS victims suffer from rare and deadly infections and cancers

According to the study, people with the double Gc 2 combination (homozygous for Gc 2) had a greatly reduced chance of AIDS virus infection, even when they had sexual intercourse with partners known to be virus carriers. Those with the double Gc 1f combination were far more likely to have been infected and to have become severely ill. Lesser effects were discerned in people who had one Gc 2 or one Gc 1f subtype in combination with others, but the scientists said the implication of such mixes needed more study. Nor was the implication for AIDS vulnerability of the Gc 1s subtype clear, they said. For instance, in a study of 7,000 Caucasians in Minnesota, the Gc 1f was present in 15 percent of subjects; Gc 1s in 57 percent; and Gc 2 in 28 percent. In that Minnesota study, 2.3 percent of subjects carried the double Gc 1f combination, which has been linked to greater susceptibility to AIDS; 32 percent carried the double Gc 1s combination and 8 percent the double Gc 2 combination, the one that appears to confer particular protection from AIDS. Finding the Gc link to AIDS was surprising, said Dr. Keith E. Nye, a member of the team, because he started out by looking at two other components of blood. Dr. Nye, an immunochemist who had worked with Gc for five years, said that Gc unexpectedly appeared in his tests and that he noted ''an odd'' pattern in the presence of various types of Gc in samples from the first few AIDS patients

NEW YORK - British scientists have found the first evidence of individual genetic differences in susceptibility to infection with the virus that causes AIDS. Examining blood samples from homosexual men, some of them AIDS virus carriers and some not, the scientists also found that people with a different genetic variant of the same protein were highly susceptible to AIDS infection and disease

The two scientists whose talks opened and closed the scholarly meeting were not AIDS experts but specialists in molecular biology and virology. The two, Baltimore and Dr. Howard Temin of the University of Wisconsin, shared a Nobel Prize for discovering an enzyme, reverse transcriptase, that characterizes retroviruses, and Baltimore said more 'amateurs' like himself should turn their attention to AIDS

''You don't gain very much by keeping the device in, and you have that added risk of infection,'' although that risk is small when ''reasonable care is taken,'' Dr. [William S. Pierce] said. Dr. [Bartley P. Griffith] said he thinks of a bridge patient's human heart transplant's beginning when the patient gets the mechanical heart implant. ''The first incision commits me to that individual who, at that point, becomes the sickest individual on our list,'' Dr. Griffith said. ''He does not become any less sick when he has the artificial heart in.'' For patients dying of heart failure, Dr. Griffith's team spells out the potential complications. ''A small stroke would not prevent us from going ahead with transplantation,'' Dr. Griffith said, because a patient with a stroke is better off with a human heart than an artificial heart. ''But we clearly outline there is a chance this may be a permanent situation.''

''The competition that is involved in trying to get there first, both academic and non-academic, is often an extremely positive driving force,'' Dr. [David Baltimore] said. He also noted ''a negative side,'' saying the commercial involvement aggravated the pernicious effects of traditional competition. Dr. Baltimore urged the participants ''to minimize secrecy'' and to share every bit of information that might be relevant'' to the battle against AIDS. The two scientists whose talks opened and closed the scholarly meeting were not AIDS experts but specialists in molecular biology and virology. The two, Dr. Baltimore and Dr. Howard Temin of the University of Wisconsin, shared a Nobel Prize for discovering an enzyme called reverse transcriptase that characterizes retroviruses, and Dr. Baltimore said more ''amateurs'' like himself should turn their attention to AIDS

Dr. [Max Essex] said yesterday that while it was ''too early'' to determine what Dr. [James L. Mullins]'s study meant, he would ''be objective and investigate the possibility of contamination.'' Dr. Essex said Dr. Mullins's team had not shown ''clear evidence of contamination.'' Dr. Essex said that some research over the last year tended to rule against contamination of the conventional type - from cell to cell in a laboratory - but that the airborne contamination of virus cultures in the laboratory had not been ruled out. Dr. Essex said, however, that he considered that possibility to be ''remote.'' Dr. Essex said that because of the possibility of contamination his team began ''about a month ago'' to try to identify ''new and different isolates from people'' of the HTLV-4 virus