Firm Plans To Transplant Gene-Edited Pig Hearts Into Babies Next Year (technologyreview.com) 33
eGenesis has started transplanting gene-edited pigs' hearts into infant baboons -- and humans may be next. From a report: The baby baboon is wearing a mesh gown and appears to be sitting upright. "This little lady ... looks pretty philosophical, I would say," says Eli Katz, who is showing me the image over a Zoom call. This baboon is the first to receive a heart transplant from a young gene-edited pig as part of a study that should pave the way for similar transplants in human babies, says Katz, chief medical officer at the biotech company eGenesis. The company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has developed a technique that uses the gene-editing tool CRISPR to make around 70 edits to a pig's genome. These edits should allow the organs to be successfully transplanted into people, the team says. As soon as next year, eGenesis hopes to transplant pig hearts into babies with serious heart defects. The goal is to buy them more time to wait for a human heart.
Before that happens, the team at eGenesis will practice on 12 infant baboons. Two such surgeries have been performed so far. Neither animal survived beyond a matter of days. But the company is optimistic, as are others in the field. Many recipients of the first liver transplants didn't survive either -- but thousands of people have since benefited from such transplants, says Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, who has worked with rival company United Therapeutics. Babies born with heart conditions represent "a great population to be focusing on," he says, "because so many of them die." Over 100,000 people in the US alone are waiting for an organ transplant. Every day, around 17 of them die. Researchers are exploring multiple options, including the possibility of bioprinting organs or growing new ones inside people's bodies. Transplanting animal organs is another potential alternative to help meet the need.
Before that happens, the team at eGenesis will practice on 12 infant baboons. Two such surgeries have been performed so far. Neither animal survived beyond a matter of days. But the company is optimistic, as are others in the field. Many recipients of the first liver transplants didn't survive either -- but thousands of people have since benefited from such transplants, says Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, who has worked with rival company United Therapeutics. Babies born with heart conditions represent "a great population to be focusing on," he says, "because so many of them die." Over 100,000 people in the US alone are waiting for an organ transplant. Every day, around 17 of them die. Researchers are exploring multiple options, including the possibility of bioprinting organs or growing new ones inside people's bodies. Transplanting animal organs is another potential alternative to help meet the need.
amazing, terrifying (Score:4, Interesting)
It will doubtless upset some people, but the fact that we can do repeated heart transplants using cross-species organs no less, is just fucking amazing.
Re: (Score:2)
Predicted response (Score:5, Funny)
Evangelicals: "They are grooming children to be pigs!"
Re:Predicted response (Score:4, Funny)
Or worse, "They are grooming pigs to be children!"
Re: (Score:2)
They wouldn't have tha heart...
Re: (Score:2)
Two valves good, four valves bad.
Re: amazing, terrifying (Score:2)
Sorry, but all the immunosuppressants causing cancer, all the lateral gene transfer mixing pig DNA with human, this one seems half baked. How hard can it be to just grow hearts out of human stem cells, by creating a synthetic environment that mimics the environment of a human heart?
Re: (Score:3)
How hard can it be to just grow hearts out of human stem cells, by creating a synthetic environment that mimics the environment of a human heart?
Much harder than raising a pig, that's for sure.
Re: (Score:2)
Our immune systems are both simple and complex at the same time. Simple in that all they really check for is "is this self or not self". Complex in the sheer amount of different recognition systems tracking different parts of "self or not self" code.
Genetically modifying cellular structure to match the relevant parts of the code has been an object of study for a long time. Problem is, it's almost impossible to generate a perfect adaptation, so anyone with organ transplants has to take immunosuppressants for
Re: (Score:1)
Our immune systems are both simple and complex at the same time. Simple in that all they really check for is "is this self or not self". Complex in the sheer amount of different recognition systems tracking different parts of "self or not self" code.
Genetically modifying cellular structure to match the relevant parts of the code has been an object of study for a long time. Problem is, it's almost impossible to generate a perfect adaptation, so anyone with organ transplants has to take immunosuppressants for the rest of his/her life. And rejection still comes for pretty much everyone, because eventually you fail to suppress the type of immune system identifying mechanism that tracks the part that is different, even in transplant from close relative that is almost the same as the target individual, and then immune system does what it does best. Attack that which is not self until it's dead and removed from the body.
Complexity of doing this cross species is... so much greater. I suspect the main reason for doing this is increase general availability of organs, at the cost of rapidity of immune rejection compared to human to human transplant. An interesting path to explore, but unlikely to produce viable solutions for human organ transplants for decades.
Immune system is not the only issue at stake here. Are pig hearts okay being sustained by human blood? Different electrolyte levels, different hormonal signals, different blood glucose, cholesterol transport, well bloody everything - or is it similar enough not to matter?
Re: (Score:2)
This is actually one of the main reasons pigs are selected as one of the best simulacra of human body when it comes to various organs. As far as similarity goes, pigs are shockingly close to humans in terms of their internals, to the point where more peaceful nations wanting to train surgeons and such on how to operate on things like gunshot wounds, they use pigs as simulated human bodies.
Lil Oinkers (Score:1)
Will they grunt when they get excited?
Re: (Score:2)
And when they're older, "I'm gonna make you squeal like a pig" will have entirely new connotations.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe they'll be good finding truffles
Re: (Score:2)
Now that, my friend, would be a major asset. Let the breeding begin!
Re: (Score:1)
I do, and I don't have a pig heart.
Re: (Score:2)
TMI
Donor system borked up (Score:1)
I don't know if this applies to infants, but in general the organ donor program is messed up. If the system pays people, they'll get a much better response. I realize such opens the door for abuse, but learn to manage the abuse. Volunteerism only goes so far.
Re: Donor system borked up (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
BBQ.
Extra sauce.
Re: Donor system borked up (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
We already have paid transplant programs for organs that you have more than one of and where you can survive with less than what you start with. Kidneys are probably the most popular ones.
They're not legal in many places due to abuse, and as a result they're currently either still in Turkey where they migrated from Kosovo in the wake of "involuntary donations by missing Serbs" allegations, or they may have moved on from there. The whole "got drunk, woke up with stiches in lower abdomen, missing a kidney" in
"This little lady ... looks pretty philosophical" (Score:4, Insightful)
This will bring about the Aporkalypse (Score:1)
Here is the TED Talk about how this came about (Score:1)
Pig babies (Score:2)
Someday, the pig babies will rule the earth.
Re: (Score:1)
There are stem cells in such organs and they might be able to migrate.
Human mothers have been found to have stem cells in their brains, guessed to be from their sons: https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
So if stem cells from unborn babies can end up in mothers brains what are the odds that pig organ stem cells can end up in your brain especially if you are taking drugs to compromise your immune system to prevent organ rejection.
But hey let's do this because we can publish more papers and make money.
See also: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.10... [pnas.org]
We conclude that adult human bone marrow cells can enter the brain and generate neurons just as rodent cells do.
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
There have been anecdotal claims that some organ donor recipients experience personality or food preference changes. https://digital.library.unt.ed... [unt.edu]
upon leaving the hospital she had an uncontrollable urge to go to a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and order chicken nuggets, a food she never ate.
Maybe these are made up but there's already scientific research showing that stem cells could migrate to brains. And also the stomach has a "brain" of its own: https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com] https://hms.harvard.edu/news-e... [harvard.edu] So the stem cells may not have to cross the brain-blood barrier in order to influence the brain.
OMG, you're right. I better die of heart failure than risk developing an urge to get KFC chicken nuggets.
Dr gave me a pill... ! (Score:2)
Researchers are exploring multiple options, including the possibility of bioprinting organs or growing new ones inside people's bodies.
This strongly reminds me of a particular scene from Star Trek: The Voyage Home [youtube.com], circa 1986. (And as someone with polycystic kidney disease, I'm very much looking forward to a chance encounter with "Bones" myself, one day.)