The first successful transplant of a genetically modified pig into a brain-dead man was reported on Thursday by surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
The announcement was the latest in a series of remarkable feats. A genetically modified pig's heart was transplant into a patient with heart failure at the University of Maryland. The patient is under observation.
In September, surgeons at NYU Langone Health attached a transplant from a pig to a brain-dead person. The kidneys work for 54 hours, making urine and creatinine, a waste product.
The first pig-to-human organ transplant has been described in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
The pig kidneys started functioning and making urine after 23 minutes, but one made more urine than the other, according to the surgical team.
There were no signs of rejection of the pig organs after the patients' own kidneys were removed.
The lead surgeon said that the procedure had followed all of the steps of a normal human-to-human transplant operation and that critical safety questions had been addressed, laying the groundwork for a small clinical trial with live patients that she hoped to begin by the end.
Many of the previous operations were not part of ongoing trials.
The goal is not to have a one-off, but to advance the field to help our patients. I will be so happy when I know I have a transplant for everyone waiting to see me.
Alabama has one of the highest rates of chronic kidney disease in the nation. People of color, women, and those with less education and lower incomes are disproportionately affected by the disease.
Adults ages 45 to 64 are more likely to have chronic kidney disease. If you don't receive a transplant from a compatible donor, you will have to go to the hospital about three times a week for several hours of treatment.
Kidney failure needs a radical solution, and we think it is. She wants to be able to offer pig kidneys to her patients within five years if she hits every milestone.
In the paper, she and the other authors thanked the family of the brain-dead individual, James Parsons, for consenting to the research and said they would name it after him.
Mr. Parsons loved helping people and his family described him as a friendly person. The family agreed to the research.
Mr. Parsons would be happy that so many people would benefit, according to his sister. Many people need a transplant.
It is a image.
A motorcycle racer named James Parsons was injured during a race.
More than half a million Americans are affected by end-stage kidney disease. An acute shortage of donor organs leaves most patients out of a transplant option.
As of last summer, more than 87,000 people were on waiting lists for a transplant. More than a dozen people on the waiting list die each day, and fewer than 25,000 transplants are done in the United States each year.
New technologies like cloning and genetic engineering have brought about a vision of growing organs in pigs that are suitable for transplantation into humans.
The practice of implanting animal organs in humans has been going on for decades. Over the last few months, surgeons in the field have reported a number of new accomplishments.
In September, surgeons at NYU Langone used a genetically altered pig's kidneys to see if they could prevent aggressive human rejection. For 54 hours, the patient's thigh was attached to a kidneys that was functioning as it should, making urine and creatinine, a waste product.
The most stunning procedure happened in January at the University of Maryland Medical Center. David Bennett was given a genetically modified pig's heart after exhausting all other treatment options.
He was out of the machine on January 11. The scientific director of the University of Maryland cardiac xenotransplantation program said that he is doing well and has not rejected the animal's organ.
The doctor said that the heart is beating like a new heart after 12 days. It is like putting a BMW engine in a 1960s car.
A pig's genome had undergone 10 alterations, including the removal of four genes to prevent rejection and to prevent continued growth of the organ, when Mr. Bennett received his heart.
Six human genes were inserted into the pig's genome to make it more tolerant to the human immune system.
The pigs were provided by Revivicor, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics Corporation, which helped fund the research and provided grant money to support the salaries of the first author of the paper. Revivicor employees are four of the other authors on the paper.
The pig organs are not being rejected, which is a major achievement.
The biggest fear in the community was that the body would reject the new organ.
The director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute welcomed the chance to learn more about xenotransplantation through work done at other centers.
He said that he was particularly interested in what new information could be learned about the function of the kidneys.
He and other surgeons at NYU Langone attached a pig kidneys to a patient who was brain-dead.
Dr. Locke made sure that the experimental operation at U.A.B. mirrored a standard allotransplantation.
The pig's organs were removed in a facility that is certified by the hospital. A compatibility test was developed to make sure the brain-dead person didn't already have an immune system that would reject a pig organ.
The surgeons removed Mr. Parsons's kidneys in order to make sure that his urine was coming from the pig's kidneys, and administered standard immunosuppressant drugs that were already widely used in allotransplants.
This is part of a larger program to make sure we can move this into living people in a responsible way.
We wanted to take the whole thing out for a test drive in a human to make sure we know how this will work before we give it to patients.
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