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News: It’s the first time a pig’s heart has been transplanted into a human. A man with terminal heart disease named David Bennett Sr. received a genetically modified pig heart transplant during an eight-hour operation Friday, January 7 at the University of Maryland Medical Center, which made a statement last night. The surgery was a final attempt to heal Bennett, 57, who was deemed unfit for a traditional heart transplant. He had been hospitalized for more than six weeks before the procedure for life-threatening arrhythmia. “Die or get this transplant,” he said in the press release. “I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark but this is my final choice.”
Technical: Ten genes in the donor pig were changed before the transplant took place. Three of these genes are responsible for rejecting pig organs for humans, so they were knocked out. Six genes were inserted to help control the immune acceptance of the pig heart, and one additional gene was disabled to stop the overgrowth of pig heart tissue.
The Maryland team also used a new experimental drug to suppress the immune system and prevent rejection, and a new machine that pushes fluid into the tissue to keep the pig’s heart alive until processing. The FDA granted emergency clearance for the procedure on New Year’s Eve. to the New York Times.
What’s next: According to the Health Resources and Services Administration, a federal agency, with approximately 107,000 people on the transplant waiting list in the United States, 17 die every day.
Early results look promising for Bennett, who is expected to emerge from the heart-lung bypass machine he relied on today (January 11) to survive. He will be watched very closely for any symptoms in the coming days and weeks. rejection or infection.
New limit: While xenotransplantation, the process of transplanting animal organs or tissues into humans, has a long and often unsuccessful history, new gene editing technologies are making it more viable. In last week’s operation, the genetically modified pig was supplied by Revivicor, one of several biotech companies working to develop pig organs for transplant into humans.
Revivicor was also behind the most recent successful transplant of a pig kidney to a human patient. OctoberIt was an important milestone in proving the feasibility of their techniques. Alongside the Revivicor, Harvard scientist George Church founded a company, eGensis, is seeking to use CRISPR gene editing to make animal organs suitable for human transplant, although the ambitious proposed timeline has fallen by the wayside.
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