Doctor Successfully Transplant Pig Kidney in a Person, First Time : What is the Future

Science News ,World :-  In an exciting development, doctors have successfully transplanted a pig kidney into a person for the first time. This success has researchers hopeful about using animal organs for human transplants, a process called xenotransplantation.

The patient who received the pig kidney is Richard Slayman, a 62-year-old man suffering from severe kidney failure. He underwent surgery on March 16 and is recovering well, according to his doctors.

The kidney came from a special miniature pig that had undergone 69 genetic changes. These changes were made to prevent rejection of the organ by the recipient's body and to lower the risk of any viruses that the organ might carry.

Experts say that, at least in the short term, these transplanted pig organs are safe and work just like human kidneys. Luhan Yang, the CEO of Qihan Biotech in China, and a founder of the company that created the genetically modified pigs, eGenesis in Massachusetts, believes this case shows promising results.

The company is now talking with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) about planning larger clinical trials. These trials would involve transplanting pig kidneys, hearts for children, and livers that would be connected to the recipient's body externally. Wenning Qin, a molecular biologist at eGenesis, confirms this plan.

Hope for Saving Lives: Push for Full-Scale Tests of Animal Organ Transplants

In the United States, when someone's life is in danger and there's no other way to help them, doctors sometimes use animal organs for transplants. This is called "compassionate use." Now, there's hope that these transplants might become more common.

One person who had an animal organ transplant, named Slayman, got approval from the FDA for this special treatment. But Dr. Yang believes that with new positive results, the FDA might allow larger tests with more people. He thinks these transplants could give patients and their families hope and save lives.

Using animal organs for transplants could also help solve a big problem: not having enough human organs for everyone who needs them. In the United States alone, nearly 90,000 people are waiting for a kidney transplant. Sadly, over 3,000 people die each year while waiting. Dr. Wayne Hawthorne from the University of Sydney in Australia says that even though more people are donating organs, there's still a huge shortage.

Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin, a surgeon and researcher, is excited about the possibility of more tests. He led the first transplant of a pig's heart into a living person. Dr. Mohiuddin, who also heads the International Xenotransplantation Association, believes that these tests can give us important information about how safe and effective animal organ transplants are.

Before, surgeons have already put gene-edited pig hearts into two living people. They've also transplanted modified pig kidneys into people who were declared dead because their brains stopped working. Just recently, surgeons in China put a modified pig liver into a person who was clinically dead and kept it there for ten days. This shows that animal organ transplants might offer hope for many people in need.

Dozens of Edits

The surgery to give Slayman a pig kidney lasted four hours, according to Tatsuo Kawai, one of the doctors who did the surgery. Slayman already had a human kidney that someone donated to him in 2018, but it was starting to fail. Because of this, Slayman had to regularly go for dialysis treatment. But he faced more problems and had to visit the hospital often, so doctors thought he could try getting a pig kidney.

The pig's kidney given to Slayman had been changed by scientists at a company called eGenesis using a method called CRISPR–Cas9 genome editing. They changed 69 genes in the pig. Monkeys who got pig organs from this company with these changes in their genes lived for months to years. Qin, one of the scientists, believes Slayman's new pig kidney could last just as long, maybe even longer. This is because the changes were made with humans in mind, not monkeys.

The changes included taking out three genes that help pigs make three types of sugars on their cells' surface. Our immune system sees these sugars as a sign of an enemy and attacks them. Seven new genes were added to make proteins like those in humans that help stop the body from rejecting the organ.

Preventing Viral Spread

Scientists have made 59 changes to the genes of pigs to stop viruses from becoming active in the human body. They worry that these viruses might become a problem once inside humans. While there haven't been cases of this happening in living humans or non-human primates who received pig transplants, lab experiments have shown that these viruses can move from pig tissues to human cells and to mice with weak immune systems.

The first pig heart that was successfully transplanted into a person had a hidden virus, which might have caused the organ to fail eventually. Before approving such operations, the FDA is concerned about the risk of pig diseases spreading to the recipient. eGenesis regularly tests its pigs for pathogens like porcine cytomegalovirus, which can hide in pigs without causing symptoms.

Before the transplant, researchers froze blood samples from the patient, his family, and his surgeons. If the patient gets sick later on, scientists can check these samples to see if they were the source of the illness.

The patient will be regularly tested for diseases, and if he shows any symptoms, his family and caregivers will also be checked.

These precautions are crucial because a pig might seem healthy, but its germs could still cause problems for someone with a weak immune system. Even if tests show no viruses or bacteria in the pigs before the transplant, there's still a risk they could grow and spread in a person with a compromised immune system. So, there are still many unknowns that scientists are trying to understand.

Keeping Kidneys Healthy

Kidneys do a big job in our bodies. They clean out bad stuff, make pee, and help keep our blood pressure in check. When surgeons fixed up the blood flow to a transplanted pig kidney, it quickly turned pink and started making pee. That's a good sign the transplant worked.

Doctors also look at something called creatinine in the blood to check kidney health. High levels of creatinine mean the kidney isn't doing its job of cleaning waste well. Before the transplant, Slayman had high creatinine levels, but by the fourth day after the surgery, it dropped a lot. Doctors hope it'll keep going down to a normal level.

"It seems like this kidney is working how it should," says Mohiuddin.

Slayman might leave the hospital as soon as tomorrow. He's taking medicines to stop his body from rejecting the new kidney, and things are looking good so far. Scientists hope to tweak pig genes so recipients won't need these medicines, which can weaken the body.

"Before, people said pig organ transplants were a dream. Now, we have someone with a pig kidney—it's amazing!" says Qin.