Organ transplant research
US surgeon successfully transplanted pig kidney to humans
In the United States, a pig kidney was transplanted into a human for the first time without the recipient’s immune system triggering immediate rejection (symbol photo)
© Waltraud Grubitzsch / Picture Alliance
In the United States, a team of doctors transplanted a pig kidney into a human for the first time without the organ being rejected. An important advance that could help address the shortage of human organs for transplants.
For the first time a pig kidney has been transplanted into a human without the recipient’s immune system triggering immediate rejection. The experiment was carried out at NYU Langone Health in New York City on a brain-dead patient, as reported by several agencies and US media. For the procedure, a pig was used whose genes had been modified in such a way that its tissue no longer contained a molecule that is known to trigger almost immediate rejection.
The woman showed signs of kidney dysfunction. Her family agreed to the experiment before being turned off from life support. For three days, the new kidney was attached to her blood vessels and kept outside her body so that doctors could access it. The kidney did what it was supposed to – filter waste and produce urine – and did not trigger rejection.
Pig kidney in humans: For the first time no rejection
The test results of the function of the transplanted kidney “looked pretty normal,” said transplant surgeon and lead study, Dr. Robert Montgomery, the Reuters news agency. The kidney produced “the amount of urine one would expect from a transplanted human kidney,” he said, and there has been no evidence of the violent, premature rejection seen in unmodified pig kidney transplantation into non-human primates .
The recipient’s abnormal creatinine level – an indicator of poor kidney function – returned to normal after the transplant, Montgomery said.
Researchers have been working on the possibility of using animal organs for transplants for decades, but did not know how to prevent immediate rejection by the human body. Montgomery’s team theorized that turning off the pig’s gene for a carbohydrate that causes rejection – a specific sugar molecule – would prevent the problem.
Experiment should pave the way for trials on patients with end-stage renal failure
The genetically modified pig was developed and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in December 2020 for use as a food for people with a meat allergy and as a potential source of human therapeutics.
Medical products that are developed from pigs still require special approval before they can be used in humans, according to the authority. Other researchers are investigating whether these species of pigs could be a source of heart valves or skin grafts for human patients.
The experiment at NYU should pave the way for trials in patients with end-stage renal failure, possibly over the next year or two. In these attempts, the approach could be tested as a short-term solution for severely ill patients until a human kidney is available, or as a permanent transplant.
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