An American scientific team succeeded in making the kidney of a genetically modified pig that it transplanted into the body of a brain-dead human being continue to work for a record period of two months, and the researchers announced Thursday, as was scheduled, the end of the experiment.
Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the Transplant Institute at New York University’s Langone Hospital, where the experiment was conducted, said in a statement: “We have learned a lot over the past two months through detailed observation and analysis, and we have good reasons to be optimistic about the future.”
Transplanting animal organs into humans, called allografts, could provide a solution to the chronic shortage of kidney donations. There are currently more than 100,000 Americans on the waiting list to undergo organ transplants, including about 88,000 waiting for a kidney transplant.
Last July 14, a pig kidney was transplanted to a brain-dead man who donated his body to science. The pig was genetically modified so that the human body would not immediately expel the transplanted organ.
After a month, no indication of the body’s rejection of the kidney was recorded, but scientists announced on Thursday that a mild rejection process was recorded later, which necessitated intensification of immunosuppressive treatments.
The Langone University statement explained that additional results will be published in the coming months.
This team has performed a number of allograft transplantations in recent years, including the first transplant of a pig kidney into a human body in the world in September 2021. However, all of its experiments have so far only lasted a short time.
The experiment conducted this summer lasted 61 days, which is a record.
Further experiments are scheduled to be conducted on deceased persons.
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2023-09-15 13:58:00
