The second heart transplantation of a GMO pig was again performed by scientists from the University of Maryland. A man with heart failure volunteered. Currently, there are no signs of organ rejection – the results look optimistic. In the near future, the team plans to obtain approval to test the technology in clinical trials.
In January last year, scientists reported the first successful heart transplantation of a GMO pig to a human – 57-year-old David Bennett volunteered and lived two months after the operation. Recently, the authors presented a detailed report on the operation and the cause of the patient’s death, which considers three possible factors. All potential risks were taken into account before conducting a similar operation again. The surgery was performed on Friday, September 22. Currently, 58-year-old Lawrence Fossett is conscious and there are no signs of heart rejection, Stat.
For xenotransplantation, a pig organ with 10 DNA changes was used, which made it possible to make the animal’s heart more adapted to the human body. Like last time, the donor organ was provided by the biotechnology company Revivicor, which had previously received permission from the US regulator FDA to grow GalSafe GMO pigs.
“Of course, the next few weeks will be crucial, but we take every day as a victory,” said Muhammad Mohiuddin, head of the University of Maryland’s xenotransplant program.
If successful, the scientists plan to obtain a clinical trial permit to recruit patients for transplantation on a regular basis. Such permission will speed up the waiting period. For example, this time the patient waited for two years, but not all people with severe heart failure can do this.
Other scientists have previously reported successes in transplanting a pig kidney into a human. So far, experimental surgeries have been performed on people after death, but the period of normal functioning of the kidney in the body already exceeds a month.
