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Medicine Science

US Surgeons Successfully Test Pig Kidney Transplant In Human Patient (reuters.com) 66

Posted by BeauHD from the major-advances dept.
For the first time, a pig kidney has been transplanted into a human without triggering immediate rejection by the recipient's immune system, a potentially major advance that could eventually help alleviate a dire shortage of human organs for transplant. Reuters reports: The procedure done at NYU Langone Health in New York City involved use of a pig whose genes had been altered so that its tissues no longer contained a molecule known to trigger almost immediate rejection. The recipient was a brain-dead patient with signs of kidney dysfunction whose family consented to the experiment before she was due to be taken off of life support, researchers told Reuters. For three days, the new kidney was attached to her blood vessels and maintained outside her body, giving researchers access to it.

Test results of the transplanted kidney's function "looked pretty normal," said transplant surgeon Dr. Robert Montgomery, who led the study. The kidney made "the amount of urine that you would expect" from a transplanted human kidney, he said, and there was no evidence of the vigorous, early rejection seen when unmodified pig kidneys are transplanted into non-human primates. The recipient's abnormal creatinine level - an indicator of poor kidney function - returned to normal after the transplant, Montgomery said.

Montgomery's team theorized that knocking out the pig gene for a carbohydrate that triggers rejection - a sugar molecule, or glycan, called alpha-gal - would prevent the problem. The genetically altered pig, dubbed GalSafe, was developed by United Therapeutics Corp's Revivicor unit. It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in December 2020, for use as food for people with a meat allergy and as a potential source of human therapeutics. Other researchers are considering whether GalSafe pigs can be sources of everything from heart valves to skin grafts for human patients.
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US Surgeons Successfully Test Pig Kidney Transplant In Human Patient More

US Surgeons Successfully Test Pig Kidney Transplant In Human Patient

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  • "The procedure ... involved use of a pig whose genes had been altered so that its tissues no longer contained a molecule known to trigger almost immediate rejection."

    Wow! Humans are making new forms of life.

    • Re: New forms of life: "... genes had been altered (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Grokew ( 8384065 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @02:21AM (#61909089)
      Humans have been doing it for a long time now. Glow in the dark animals, bacteria, edited to produce specific chemicals for drugs and food. Bacteria modified to eat plastics or oil. That aside. The family of that woman did a great thing. They lost a loved one, but gave hope to many people suffering from organ failure.

      • Humans have been doing it for a long time now.

        Your list is only the most recent one.
        We could also add older achievement like transforming wild grass-like plants into crops.
        Even more impressive, because the first of these transformations happened in an era when the most advanced tools available to civilization were just a bunch of different rocks.

        • the first of these transformations happened in an era when the most advanced tools available to civilization were just a bunch of different rocks.

          Note: the most advanced durable tools available to civilization. Things like basketry and ropes wouldn't have survived, and the civilizations that built massive megaliths surely had some kind of tools available.

    • "Wow! Humans are making new forms of life."

      Not to mention new forms of bacon.

    • I said, "Humans are making new forms of life." I didn't provide enough detail.

      Directly and specifically modifying DNA to make a new form of life that resolves a problem is very new. That's my understanding.

  • That must be something to be lying there able to poke your own liver, outside of your body. I wonder if it changes color if you drink something with dye in it. What if you hold your breath?

    If this is ever viable, the first thing getting one of these is that robotic dog from Boston Dynamics. Happy Halloween!!

    --
    "I majored in English in college, so I read the classic dystopian novels like '1984' and 'Brave New World.'" - Lois Lowry

    • That must be something to be lying there able to poke your own liver, outside of your body.

      At first that sounds disturbing but think of it this way - it also means you could easily attach a heavy-duty liver when you planned a night of hard drinking!

      You could easily conceal your external liver in a fanny pack and party hardy.

      It's this kind of possibility that really makes me think trans-humanists are on the right track.

      • good grief we can barely decide on usb A/B/uB/miniB/C, firewire, thunderbolt, lightning, eSata, SCSI, DVI, HDMI etc. how will we come up with an external organ connector ? You'd better not connect it upside down.

    • That must be something to be lying there able to poke your own liver, outside of your body.

      Noting that (a) it was a kidney not a liver and (b) the patient was brain-dead and about to be taken off life support to die, so if she had poked her own kidney, that would have been by far the least amazing thing happening in the room.

      • Just fwiw, a brain-dead person in the US is legally dead already. You only maintain their pulse to harvest organs, or, like this, to experiment.
    • Well, that is slightly better than having a crow pecking your liver like poor olde Prometheus.

    • Giving dead serious answers to a what was a joke question:

      I wonder if it changes color if you drink something with dye in it.

      Unless of extreme cases of deadly poisoning(*), whatever you're drinking is going to be only in a very tiny fraction of your blood.
      So the most major contribution from your blood to the colors of organs is going to be red from the haemoglobin in the red blood cells.
      Neither the color of your blood nor most of the organ should change much.

      BUT!

      Kidneys (the organs mentionned in TFA) are specialized into filtering stuff from the blood and concentrating it.

  • Coming soon!

  • Where are those clowns on this?

    • Re:No Kidneys for PETA (Score:5, Informative)

      by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @03:48AM (#61909231)

      Where are those clowns on this?

      Just donate these genetically-modified pigs to PETA and PETA will probably euthanize them for you. [newsweek.com]

      Data collected by Virginia's state government shows that PETA's euthanasia rates for cats and dogs at the shelter is exceptionally higher than other shelters in the state.

      In 2019, of 2,421 dogs and cats received at PETA's Norfolk shelter, 1,578 were euthanized, according to the most recent report from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS).

      In Simpson's most recent article, looking at the VDACS numbers of dogs and cats euthanized from 2019, he wrote, "In other words, PETA euthanized 57% of the dogs it took in and 72% of the cats."

      I guess it's okay to kill animals as long as you don't eat them....

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        PETA are against cruelty to animals. Arguably humanely euthanising unwanted pets is less cruel than keeping them around if there are too many of them and you can't find a good home for them.

        The only problem with that view is that it inevitably leads one to wonder if the same shouldn't be true for people.

      • I don't think that particular criticism is fair. They're doing what they can but they can't guarantee to warehouse however many millions of unwanted animals society decides to dump on them. Even Superman doesn't stop ALL the muggings.

        • I don't think that particular criticism is fair. They're doing what they can but they can't guarantee to warehouse however many millions of unwanted animals society decides to dump on them. Even Superman doesn't stop ALL the muggings.

          Perhaps, but they also seem to be a little over-zealous about euthanizing animals, while also purporting to be against "all needless killing[s]" -- where they get to define "needless". From the article I referenced:

          In 2017, PETA faced controversy when it euthanized a 9-year-old girl's pet chihuahua named Maya and agreed to pay the girl's family $49,000, according to the Associated Press.

          ... we are against all needless killing: for hamburgers, fur collars, dissection, sport hunting—the works,"

          Obviously there are un/ethical ways to treat living animals (and people), as far as "needless killing", animals eat other animals all the time so I don't know if that itself could be considered "unethical" -- in deference to the organization's name -- but they seem to be happy as the artibter o

    • Defund the kidney beans, we say!

      Life without parole for the butchers of pigs in thermal blankets, we say!

      A pig without kidneys is ne'er a pig at all, we say!

      THIS, is a pig too far!

      Sincerely,

      PETA
      Pigs for the Ethical Treatment of Averybuddy

      PS. (You insensitive clod.)

      --
      Ahn now vee dahnce!

  • Nobel prize material

  • Used to be only two ways off life-long dialysis: death or a human transplant. Since there was a shortage of transplantable kidneys, death was too often the only way off dependence on an expensive machine protocol. Can the same pigs provide usable hearts?

  • And if she wakes up, she'll have a tasty snack at her side.

    Wake me up when we can vat-grow human organs for transplant with the DNA of the recipient. (The pigs would like it, no offense to the pigs.)

    • That would be a lot harder than cloning you, killing the clone in its infancy, and harvesting the organs.

      Here's hoping we make the necessary and remarkable discoveries in understanding how stem cells specialize into specific structures before that becomes a thing.

      • Star Trek: Enterprise explored the ethical dilemmas of the clone scenario in an episode where Tripp was injured/wounded as I recall.

  • Human vs Pig Rejection (Score:3)

    by ethanms ( 319039 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @03:49AM (#61909235)

    If humans need to be donor marched to each other, is the same true for pigs? Or maybe TFA is referring to a different sort of organ rejection, one that is much more aggressive?

    I also wonder... what is the reason that other primates aren't used for human organ replacement? Is it because of rejection? Or is it because of ethical concerns?

    Right now pigs have their lives taken for a variety of reasons, "use as a burger topping" has to be one of the least "noble", not that it really matters I suppose, but it would certainly add an interesting twist to the ethical arguments of animal consumption if one of those types of consumption was organ replacement vs food.

    • If humans need to be donor marched to each other, is the same true for pigs? Or maybe TFA is referring to a different sort of organ rejection, one that is much more aggressive?

      I guess not really. The pig isn't edited so that it's tissue compatibility markers are identical to the donor's, it's edited to not have them at all, thus avoiding immune response from anyone. And that's bloody awesome.

      • Will not be surprised if in a few years pigs are "bred on demand" to have identical genetic markers that the organ recipient has so that the donor's body recognises the pig organ as belonging to the donor's body and being treated accordingly.

        Need a new liver/kidney/heart/something else? Just wait a few months and you will have a new organ which is "brand new", and the "same" as your original as far as your immune system is concerned.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sjames ( 1099 )

      Not sure about all matching, but in general, pig organs cause a severe and immediate rejection that can't be suppressed even with the most aggressive immune suppression.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by flyingfsck ( 986395 )
        Pig heart valves are commonly used for transplants.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Pig heart valves are commonly used for transplants.

          Pig heart valves are treated with glutaraldehyde and are sterile. A kidney has to have living cells to function.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by sjames ( 1099 )

          Heart valves are not organs. They contain few cells. As the AC pointed out, those few cells are chemically removed when the valve is going to be implanted in a human.

      • I think it is this severe and immediate hyper-acute [wikipedia.org] rejection of pig organs that has been avoided. I guess your run-of-the-mill acute or chronic rejection can still occur.

    • So why not use that gene technique to avoid reaction from a human kidney? If it works for a pig organ than... Also why call it galsafe? Sounds like a name that came from a chauvanist pig :)
      • most people are against the idea of genetically modifying humans before birth to raise and slaughter to serve as organ replacements for other humans. Pigs seem a more ethical target for this kind of technique. Presumably gal is an abbreviation for the genetic marker that this pig lacks, which causes an allergic reaction for some people when eaten, and immediate rejection for basically everyone if you attempt a transplant.

        • Presumably gal is an abbreviation for the genetic marker that this pig lacks

          It's right in the summary - it's a carbohydrate that causes the rejection. Alpha-gal (galactose-a-1,3-galactose). It's the same sugar that makes some people allergic to red meat.

    • Marching to each other shouldn't be hard! ;)

  • ...is scary. Or scarier than it used to be.

  • Rise of the Glycans.
    Oink oink ROARRR

  • Other researchers are considering whether GalSafe pigs can be sources of everything from heart valves to skin grafts for human patients.

    Skin draft? Why not think big? For one, pigs orgasm for 30 minutes (sometimes more) [pedestrian.tv] — perhaps, transplanting something can enrich human experience in that area too?

    And second, I know some people, for whom a brain-transplant, from a well-raised pig, would be an improvement. (And no, I am not sniping at the poor patient used for the experiment in TFA.)

  • I wonder if Margaret Atwood will have anything to say about this?

  • A la Alistair Reynolds' Revelation Space universe.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by endus ( 698588 )

      I just read those books and was trying to remember the other series (or multiple?) I read that featured hyperpigs. Either way, I think it's clear that human/pig hybrids are an inevitable part of our future.

      • He's got the Revelation Space trilogy, but also a few standalone books set around the 'planet Yellowstone' which is part of that universe. Chasm City, The Prefect (since renamed to Aurora Rising for some reason), and Elysium Fire (sequel to The Prefect). These three books take place prior to the Revelation Space trilogy, before the 'melding plague' mentioned in the Revelation Space books. The Prefect is interesting as it is one of the first places I read about the idea of enhanced reality implemented in a m

        • In case it's not apparent, I'm a huge fan and think he is the best hard scifi writer alive right now. He is an astrophysicist, so it makes sense he does hard scifi. He's also got one steam punk book out that is seriously good as well (and not such hard scifi).

  • ins't that organ trading?

  • Gonna need a Think Tank to get past that one.

  • ... to think of the family that consented to this procedure to further treatment for others in the future.

  • Before doing an operation, the doctor told me to take these capsules that they sell on this [dermalrepa...exbhmd.com] website that serve very well for skin regeneration. The truth is that they helped me a lot, especially to take care of me and regenerate my skin without any The problem was one of the things that I liked the most now that the recovery began, I noticed that my wound healed faster.

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