Surgeons transplanted a pig’s kidney into a brain-dead man, and it has already worked for over a month. This procedure is a critical step before testing on live patients.
The experiment has not yet been completed, and the researchers are going to continue to monitor the kidneys, reports the Associated Press. However, the result is a record-breaking one – it is the longest period of functioning of a pig kidney in a human body.
So far, this body is working like a human body.
– Dr. Robert Montgomery, Director of the New York University Transplant Institute.
The transplant operation took place on July 14. Performed by Dr. Montgomery, the kidney of the genetically modified pig was transplanted to Maurice Miller, who bequeathed his body to science before he died suddenly at the age of 57 from brain cancer. Now his name will forever remain in medical textbooks.
Previously, similar experiments failed because the human immune system attacked the foreign tissue. That’s why genetically modified pigs are used, as their organs are better suited to human organs. Last year, with special permission, surgeons at the University of Maryland transplanted a genetically edited pig heart into a man who had no other options. This extended his life by 2 months, after which he died, for reasons that have not yet been fully investigated.
More than 100,000 patients are on the US transplant list, and thousands die every year while waiting. Animal transplantation, or xenotransplantation, has two issues. The first concerns the moral aspect, which abruptly ceases to be so for people who choose between life and death.
Another, and not yet resolved, is the reaction of the pig’s organs to the immune attack of the human body. It takes about a month to form. That is why the current record is so important.
