Surgeons Transplanted Pig Skin Onto Humans for the First Time (medium.com) 62
In a pathogen-free facility in Grafton, Massachusetts, a small town about 40 miles west of Boston, genetically engineered miniature pigs are being bred to donate their skin to humans. From a report: Their skin, which looks remarkably similar to the human variety and is referred to as Xeno-Skin, will be transplanted by surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital to a small group of burn victims in an attempt to speed up the healing process. It's the first experiment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to use animal tissue in humans, a necessary step toward someday transferring entire organs grown in animals to people who need them -- a process known as xenotransplantation. The need for such organs is dire. Each day, 20 people die waiting for an organ transplant. More than 113,000 people in the United States are currently waiting for one, while only 36,528 transplants were performed in 2018, according to government data. Every year, the waiting list grows, greatly outpacing the number of available organs. For decades, researchers looked to animal donors as a way to ease this chronic shortage, but transplants from animals have often failed.
Xeno-Skin, developed by Boston-based biotech company XenoTherapeutics, shows promise. So far, one patient has received the genetically engineered pig skin graft, and five more burn victims are slated to receive it. The grafts are meant to be temporary and will be removed once the patients' own skin has grown back. Doctors involved in the trial say the donor tissue appears to be healing as well as a human skin graft, which was transplanted next to the pig skin for side-by-side comparison. The process also hasn't caused negative reactions like provoking an immune response or transmitting animal viruses, two major issues in xenotransplantation. "We're trying to replicate exactly the same mechanisms that are used in the standard of care, or the gold standard treatment, for severe and extensive burns," Paul Holzer, CEO of XenoTherapeutics, tells OneZero.
Xeno-Skin, developed by Boston-based biotech company XenoTherapeutics, shows promise. So far, one patient has received the genetically engineered pig skin graft, and five more burn victims are slated to receive it. The grafts are meant to be temporary and will be removed once the patients' own skin has grown back. Doctors involved in the trial say the donor tissue appears to be healing as well as a human skin graft, which was transplanted next to the pig skin for side-by-side comparison. The process also hasn't caused negative reactions like provoking an immune response or transmitting animal viruses, two major issues in xenotransplantation. "We're trying to replicate exactly the same mechanisms that are used in the standard of care, or the gold standard treatment, for severe and extensive burns," Paul Holzer, CEO of XenoTherapeutics, tells OneZero.
Why not grow human skin instead? (Score:2)
We have people growing hamburger meat in labs, but we don't have the technology to grow human skin?
Which one makes more money? (Score:2)
Now you know the answer.
Re:Why not grow human skin instead? (Score:5, Informative)
No one is growing hamburger in a lab yet. There are experiments with lab grown meat but nothing production ready. Are you thinking of Impossible burger? That's plant based meat substitute with heme produced by GMO yeast.
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I think the question would be born out of a combination of overly eager press release descriptions of the lab grown meat experiments with an assumption that volume for feeding people is way higher a burden than human skin graft, and so if the *only* problems were scale and cost, perhaps skin grafts would be ok.
Except the most sophisticated 'lab grown meat' is basically muscle cells combined with some gelatin lattice to make it pretend to be muscle tissue. So it's far far more limited than one might imagine
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but but but 3D printing and space spinoffs?
How many billions of dollars would you like!? Here, have 20 to start!
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It is a problem with Laws not Science. There are a lot more regulations about human genetic experimentation. The Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee and the FDA both regulate it.
https://osp.od.nih.gov/biotech... [nih.gov]
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The ends do not justify the means, and sometimes we will need to put a slowdown in area area of knowledge, because the experiment is not ethical. While ethical guidelines are always in flux, Groups like the NIH which may seem slow to adapt, is an acceptable break in Fad Science which was popular in the 19th an
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That kind of thinking is bad however genetic research is good. If I remember correctly we have already used genetic modification on two people with great success.
Genetic research for medical use should be allowed while genetic research for vanity (like the parents want a kid with blue eyes) should be banned. Vanity operations are already highly abused due to greedy doctors/hospitals that prey on weak insecure individuals that need a psychologist instead of a risky operation.
I'm not sure that's a bad thing (Score:2)
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Still is. Fluoridating everyone's tap water is a huge experiment on the general public without near enough testing.
I hear you AC. 70 years of better teeth and no ill effects for $1/year/person definitely is not enough testing. Three or four generations is nowhere near enough! If we don't have at least 10 generations worth of evidence we don't know a damn thing!
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Right, because Skeletal fluorosis isn't a problem with the youth these days. It's like some people don't even pay attention to science when it does tell you things.
Name another medication that you can take as much dose as you want. And you even bath and wash you clothes and dishes in it. Sorry, that is not a normal way to dispense medication.
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We have people growing hamburger meat in labs, but we don't have the technology to grow human skin?
Simple answer - Ethic Approvals for research. It is all but impossible to get approved to grow anything human. By now we could have had purpose-specific organs grown in labs, but embryos and other tissues and groups of cells are considered human and are not to be used. So pigs have to be used instead.
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I submit the FDA is the largest mass-murderer last century. We need studies to estimate how many lives they save by slowing things down, vs. how many they cost slowing things down.
It may not be pretty, but a handful if deaths in front of the camera, before things are changed, vastly outweigh millions of deaths due to delayed treatments by several years.
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A Genetically altered pig, grows fast, its normal body will help keep the skin alive. Then we have Skin for surgical use, and bacon, and pork for eating.
This may make Fried Pork Skins more expensive though.
Lab Grown meat, isn't ready for prime time, and it isn't really a reproduction of any organ, just protein.
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We have people growing hamburger meat in labs, but we don't have the technology to grow human skin?
1} There's a difference between "meat" and a functional organ, which skin is.
2} "genetically-engineered miniature people are being bred to donate their skin" is a sentence society isn't ready for yet. LabKids TM.
Re: Why not grow human skin instead? (Score:1)
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Sure. We've gotten pretty good at growing skin, complete with hair follicles and such.
However, if you're seriously burned you might want a cheaper, quicker, more plentiful supply.
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We do have the technology to grow artificial human skin, and it is used for burn wounds already. It's just really expensive and lacks a lot of the structure that real skin has. If they can solve the rejection issues then pig skin could be a good alternative. Probably cheaper, and better mechanical properties. The best would be growing skin out of the patient's own cells, but we'll always need something that's available immediately when the patient shows up in the ER.
Pig skin will slowly be replaced by the human body (Score:2)
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"We have people growing hamburger meat in labs, but we don't have the technology to grow human skin?"
It doesn't get as crispy and delicious.
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You've obviously never been to Florida.
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We have people growing hamburger meat in labs, but we don't have the technology to grow human skin?
Hamburger meat does not cause an immune response when I eat it.
Re: Why not grow human skin instead? (Score:2)
Never really been big on Football (Score:3)
Pig heart valve (Score:2)
My father has a pig heart valve attached to his heart so the skin might be a first but there was prior similar things.
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Re: Pig heart valve (Score:2)
Wait long enough, everything old becomes new again.
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https://i.imgflip.com/3fzk34.j... [imgflip.com]
What an apt city name (Score:5, Funny)
[...] in Grafton, Massachusetts, [...] genetically engineered miniature pigs are being bred to donate their skin to humans.
Well, lucky for us the pigs aren't bred in Intercourse, PA...
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[...] in Grafton, Massachusetts, [...] genetically engineered miniature pigs are being bred to donate their skin to humans.
Well, lucky for us the pigs aren't bred in Intercourse, PA...
Came here to make a similar joke about the coincidental town-name.
However, get your mind out of the gutter: "Social Intercourse" means "conversation"; so I'm pretty sure that the "intercourse" those 1700s Amish people who named Intercourse, PA, weren't making a reference to sex. ;-)
j/k
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so I'm pretty sure that the "intercourse" those 1700s Amish people who named Intercourse, PA, weren't making a reference to sex. ;-)
j/k
I don't know. Especially now what else are you gonna do at night with no electric lights, no TV, radio, internet, etc? Talk?
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That's What She Said, New Mexico.
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Nom nom nom (Score:2)
this is why domestic pigs were originally created (Score:1)
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Do you want to get Human-Pig Hybrids? Because that's how you get Human-Pig Hybrids.
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I'm still waiting for Spider-Pig hybrids.
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I'm still waiting for manbearpig.
May undercut organ traffickers? (Score:1)
Still going to be far cheaper to continue to kidnap people and steal their organs from occupied territories.
Mmm, Crackling (Score:2)
Isn't the body just going to reject this? (Score:1)
Aren't the patient's antibodies just going to show up and start attacking it?
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The problem here isn’t rejection (Score:2)
The problem is that people keep wanting to fry or barbecue the xenographed body part...
The Silence of the Jowls (Score:2)
"It puts the bacon on as skin, or it will get the burn again".
Skin tutorial (Score:4, Informative)
The concepts behind skin grafts and burn care always seem to engender some confusion, so hopefully this can clarify some of the background on this product.
In transplantation, there are degrees of priority and necessity. The heart is a vital all-or-none organ, and it has no substitute, and it cannot regrow, so when a transplant is needed, it is needed.
The kidney is also vital and cannot regrow, but we have latitude in renal transplantation because we have an artificial kidney, dialysis, which can keep people alive for years while awaiting a kidney.
Skin is different. It is not that vital - people can do fine without small and even large areas of skin loss as long as there is some degree of basic hygiene and wound care. And, skin knows how to grow on its own, it is how wounds heal. So, skin transplantation is irrelevant for most wounds, but it does become highly desirable when dealing with large wounds, especially in face of other systemic injury, the "big three" scenarios being burns, degloving injury, and necrotizing fasciitis. Burns get the attention because they are most relatable to most people, and they can be the biggest of all injuries.
Thus, skin transplantation or grafting is of low priority for many wounds, or it is easily accomplished with auotgenous skin grafts - simple problems solved simply. The attention in burn care and related big wounds is that patients do better faster when skin is restored faster, so the impetus is there to cover these acute big wounds. The dilemema is in getting sufficent skin or skin substitute.
Vocabulary:
Autograft - a graft from the same individual, self.
Allograft - from another individual of the same species.
Xenograft - from another species.
Autografts from yourself do well, they are yourself.
Allografts risk rejection from your immune system, meaning that donors and recipients are matched (for the big organ transplants), and immunosuppressive drugs are mandatory.
Xenografts are typically rejected very quickly, often without any effect from immunosuppressive therapies.
Here is the problem in big wounds:
On a big burn, let's say 80% body surface area, only 20% is left to supply autografts, and taking those grafts, which do regenerate and grow back, nonetheless creates additional short term wound. Autografts are the simple solution for small wounds that even need skin grafts (keeping in mind that small wounds all know how to regrow skin on their own). We do not need, and nobody is looking for a better technology for this class of wounds.
For the big wounds where quick coverage is needed, where do you get it from? The nice thing is that you do not need living tissue, just something biological or biologically compatible that looks to the wound like skin is there, but at the same time you need something non-immunogenic that will not reject quickly. So, what sources do we have?
Living human skin from live donors - never done. Unlike living related donors for kidneys, skin and skin substitutes are abundant, so no need to harvest from a living donor.
Fresh skin from human cadavers - harvested along with other organs from donors. This is stored in skin banks, to be used in burn units. Just a few skin banks remain. These grafts can live, but they are temporary. They will eventually reject. But, if they help the wound stay healthy enough for the patient to recover, then have time to methodically remove them and substitute autogenous skin grafts, that is a tried and true strategy. But, banked viable skin is in short supply, so something else is needed.
Living skin from other species - typically hyperacute rejection, making this a conventional no go. But, it would be abundant, so if rejection could be controlled, that might work (that is the idea behind this new product).
Processed skin from cadavers - non-living, but they supply biologically derived tissue that the wound recognizes as valid cover, so the wound settles down and gets healthy, allowing for a later methodical replacem
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This is VERY old news... (Score:1)
This is so old it isn't funny. Look at Adam Schiff as a child for proof of that.
Nice (Score:2)
Just in time for the holidays.
Approved! (Score:2)
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One Step Toward Making Orcs (Score:2)
If somebody can then, eventually, somebody will. I imagine one day someone will try to build an army of Orcs by fusing pig and human DNA. They will grow fast, be able to eat garbage, and be tough as hell with tusks. You just need to make them walk upright, have fingers, and sprinkle just enough human intelligence..
--Matthew
Oh sure, you can use it for skin grafts, but... (Score:2)
How does it taste? Thousands of pork-cracklin' customers need to know!
Re: Oh sure, you can use it for skin grafts, but.. (Score:2)
Though if you're going to use birdskin for transplantation, better to use goose. You'll get authentic goose bumps when cold or frightened.
And goose down keeps you warm in winter ...
Oh, the irony.... (Score:2)