Breakthrough: Pig Kidney Continues To Function In Brain-Dead Man

News Desk

Islamabad: For the first time, US surgeons have tested a transplant of a pig kidney into a brain-dead human patient which has been functioning normally for more than a month.

According to the Washington Post report, surgeons at the New York University Langone Transplant Institute called this experiment a major breakthrough.

University Langone Transplant Institute Director Robert Montgomery said that genetically modified pigs’ kidneys have been functioning normally in human body for a month.

US surgeons have tested a kidney transplant in the body of a 57-year-old man named Maurice Miller, who was declared mentally dead by doctors. Morris’s family donated his body for a scientific experiment.

The reasons behind declaring Morris mentally dead and the details regarding the medical report have not been revealed, but the doctors have declared him brain-dead. However, the man is still breathing with the help of a ventilator.

Robert said the results provide “further assurances” for any future studies in living patients. The pig kidney had been genetically modified to omit a gene that produces biomolecules that human immune systems attack and reject.

“We’ve now gathered more evidence to show that, at least in kidneys, just eliminating the gene that triggers a hyperacute rejection may be enough — along with clinically approved immunosuppressive drugs — to successfully manage the transplant in a human for optimal performance, potentially in the long-term,” Montgomery added.

Biomolecules produced by genes secreted from pig kidneys are harmful to humans. Scientists hope that cross-species transplants can help many people waiting for human organ transplants.

The researchers say they will continue to monitor the experiment for another month.

UNOS Chief Medical Officer David Klassen stated that this is an important step in clinical trials in living patients because it could be important in terms of keeping a normal person alive for a long time.

Scientists hope that animal organs can be used to save human lives in the future. Donated bodies for scientific research play an important role in research and experiments.

“I think that’s what my brother wanted; my brother’s name would be in the medical books and he would live forever,” said Mary Miller, Maurice’s sister.

It should be noted that in 2022, surgeons at the University of Maryland transplanted a genetically modified pig heart into a 57-year-old sick man but the man died two months later.

Researchers say pigs contain about 1,000 proteins that humans don’t and it can take 10 to 14 days to see how a pig organ reacts to a person’s immune system.

It is also worth noting that more than 130,000 people are currently waiting for organ transplants in the United States, of whom 88,000 are waiting for kidney transplants. Every year in the US, thousands of patients die while waiting for a human organ transplant.

In recent years, scientists have shifted their focus from monkeys to pigs, changing their genes.

In September 2021, New York researchers temporarily transplanted a pig kidney into a dead human body and watched it work. Attempts at such transplants in the past also failed because the patients’ bodies refused to accept the animal organs.

The most famous of these is the 1984 case in which a baby received a baboon heart transplant and died 21 days later.

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