World first; genetically modified pig kidney

[Lilith7]

Transplanted into living human. It'll be interesting to see how this goes & whether or not it could be the way of the future.




https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/35022...ving-human



"A kidney from a genetically modified pig has been transplanted into a living human being for the first time.
The organ had 69 genetic alterations to make it less porcine in appearance and safer for a human recipient.
The four-hour procedure took place in the US on March 16 and was a success, with the patient said to be recovering well.
Richard “Rick” Slayman has diabetes, high blood pressure and end-stage kidney failure. The 62-year-old had previously received a human kidney transplant from a deceased donor, but that organ started to fail last year.


Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston, recommended the xenotransplantation option to Slayman as a possible route to avoid more dialysis and further deterioration.
Modified pig kidneys have been given to people before as part of pioneering experiments, but all previous attempts were to brain-dead individuals being kept alive by machines, with the procedures purely experimental to test out the viability of the procedure.
Slayman is in hospital and recovering well. He is on a pioneering cocktail of drugs – tegoprubart, from Eledon Pharmaceuticals, and ravulizumab-cwvz, from Alexion Pharmaceuticals – which are designed to prevent his immune system from attacking and rejecting the foreign organ."

[king1]

ick, just ick

But watching with interest as I do have a brother in law with kidney failure, so I know just how big a deal this could be...

[Oh_hunnihunni]

I watched the surgeon thank his team.

No thanks for the pig though.

[harm_less]

Considering our last global pandemic arguably originated from zoonotic sources the risks of xenotransplantation should be regarded with extremely caution. Apart from this the implications of recipients of such porcine sourced material may well cause rejection by those whose religious faith shuns pigs (e.g. Jewish, moslems).

Assumedly the genetically altered pig would need to be disposed of once its usable organs had been harvested as the entire animal would have human genetics and therefore human consumption of it would amount to cannibalism, quite apart from the potential risks of consuming experimental animal tissue.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

We can grow organs in the lab. The thought of exploiting animals this way makes this bacon lover feel a little unsettled.

[king1]

We can grow organs in the lab.  The thought of exploiting animals this way makes this bacon lover feel a little unsettled.

meh, they'll be more bacon this way ...

[harm_less]

We can grow organs in the lab.  The thought of exploiting animals this way makes this bacon lover feel a little unsettled.

meh, they'll be more bacon this way ...

'Long pork'! Pass on that from me.

[Lilith7]

We can grow organs in the lab.  The thought of exploiting animals this way makes this bacon lover feel a little unsettled.

I think that's probably the way we'll eventually go - that, or artificial organs of some kind.
Or who knows what we might come up with eventually.