Washington, Jan 11 (AFP\/APP):US surgeons have successfully implanted a heart from a genetically modified pig in a 57-year-old man, a medical first that could one day help solve the chronic shortage of organ donations.<\/p>\n
The “historic” procedure took place Friday, the University of Maryland Medical School said in a statement on Monday. While the patient’s prognosis is far from certain, it represents a major milestone for animal to human transplantation.<\/p>\n
The patient, David Bennett, had been deemed ineligible for human transplant — a decision that is often taken when the recipient has very poor underlying health.<\/p>\n
He is now recovering and being carefully monitored to determine how the new organ performs.<\/p>\n
“It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” the Maryland resident said a day before the surgery.<\/p>\n
Bennett, who has spent the last several months bedridden on a heart-lung bypass machine, added: “I look forward to getting out of bed after I recover.”<\/p>\n
The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization for the surgery on New Year’s Eve, as a last ditch effort for a patient who was unsuitable for conventional transplant.<\/p>\n
“This was a breakthrough surgery and brings us one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis,” said Bartley Griffith, who surgically transplanted the pig heart.<\/p>\n
“We are proceeding cautiously, but we are also optimistic that this first-in-the-world surgery will provide an important new option for patients in the future.”<\/p>\n
Muhammad Mohiuddin, who co-founded the university’s cardiac xenotransplantation program, added the surgery was the culmination of years or research, involving pig-to-baboon transplants, with survival times that exceeded nine months.<\/p>\n
“The successful procedure provided valuable information to help the medical community improve this potentially life-saving method in future patients,” he said.<\/p>\n
– 10 unique gene edits –<\/p>\n
Bennett’s donor pig belonged to a herd that had undergone genetic editing procedures.
\nThree genes that would have led to rejection of pig organs by humans were “knocked out,” as was a gene that would have led to excessive growth of pig heart tissue.<\/p>\n
Six human genes responsible for human acceptance were inserted into the genome, for a total of 10 unique gene edits.<\/p>\n
The editing was performed by Virginia-based biotech firm Revivicor, which also supplied the pig used in a breakthrough kidney transplant on brain dead patients in New York in October.<\/p>\n
But while that surgery was purely a proof-of-concept experiment, and the kidney was connected outside the patient’s body, the new surgery is intended to save a person’s life.<\/p>\n
The donated organ was kept in an organ-preservation machine ahead of the surgery, and the team also used an experimental new drug made by Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals along with conventional anti-rejection drugs to suppress the immune system.<\/p>\n
About 110,000 Americans are currently waiting for an organ transplant, and more than 6,000 patients die each year before getting one, according to official figures.<\/p>\n
To meet demand, doctors have long been interested in so-called xenotransplantation, or cross-species organ donation, with experiments tracing back to the 17th century.<\/p>\n
Early research focused on harvesting organs from primates — for example, a baboon heart was transplanted into a newborn known as “Baby Fae” in 1984, but she survived only 20 days.<\/p>\n
Today, pig heart valves are widely used in humans, and pig skin is grafted on human burn victims.<\/p>\n
Pigs make the ideal donors because of their size, their rapid growth and large litters, and the fact they are already raised as a food source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Washington, Jan 11 (AFP\/APP):US surgeons have successfully implanted a heart from a genetically modified pig in a 57-year-old man, a medical first that could one day help solve the chronic shortage of organ donations. The “historic” procedure took place Friday, the University of Maryland Medical […]<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":33276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6222],"tags":[15700],"class_list":["post-33275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-historic-us-surgeons-successfully-implant-pig-heart-in-human"],"yoast_head":"\n