A 62-year-old man with end-stage kidney disease has become the first human to receive a new kidney from a genetically modified pig, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston announced on Thursday.
The four-hour surgery, performed on March 16, “represents an important milestone in the quest to provide more readily available organs to patients,” the hospital said in a statement.
The patient, Richard Slayman of Weymouth, Massachusetts, is recovering well and is expected to be released soon, the hospital said.
Slayman had received a human kidney transplant at the same hospital in 2018 after seven years of dialysis, but the organ failed after five years and he resumed dialysis treatments.
The kidney was provided by eGenesis of Cambridge, Massachusetts, from a pig that had been genetically modified to remove genes that could be harmful to a human recipient and add certain human genes to improve compatibility. Additionally, the company has inactivated certain viruses inherent to pigs that have the potential to infect humans.
Kidneys from pigs created by eGenesis and modified in a similar way were successfully transplanted into monkeys that were kept alive for an average of 176 days and, in one case, for more than two years, researchers reported in October in the journal Nature.
Drugs used to help prevent rejection of the pig organ by the patient’s immune system included an experimental antibody therapy called tegoprubart, developed by Eledon Pharmaceuticals.
The pig kidney procedure brings the field of xenotransplantation — the transplantation of organs or tissues from one species to another — closer to becoming a possible solution to the global organ shortage.
According to the United Network for Organ Sharing, more than 100,000 people in the US are waiting for an organ for transplant, with kidneys being the most sought after.
Por Nancy Lapid
2024-03-21 17:57:04