In a first, a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig was found to work normally after it was attached to a human patient.

In a first, a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig was found to work normally after it was attached to a human patient.

In a First, Surgeons Attached a Pig Kidney to a Human — and It Worked

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A kidney grown in a genetically altered pig seemed to function normally, potentially a new source for desperately needed transplant organs.

Dr. Robert Montgomery is director of the N.Y.U. Langone Transplant Institute in Manhattan. Genetically engineered pigs “could potentially be a sustainable, renewable source of organs,” he said.
Credit…Amir Hamja for The New York Times

Surgeons in New York have successfully attached a kidney grown in a genetically altered pig to a human patient and found that the organ worked normally, a scientific breakthrough that one day may yield a vast new supply of organs for severely ill patients.

Although many questions remain to be answered about the long-term consequences of the transplant, which involved a brain-dead patient followed only for 54 hours, experts in the field said the procedure represented a milestone.

“We need to know more about the longevity of the organ,” said Dr. Dorry Segev, professor of transplant surgery at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who was not involved in the research. Nevertheless, he said: “This is a huge breakthrough. It’s a big, big deal.”

Researchers have long sought to grow organs in pigs suitable for transplantation into humans. A steady stream of organs — which could eventually include hearts, lungs and livers — would offer a lifeline to the more than 100,000 Americans currently on transplant waiting lists, including the 90,240 who need a kidney. Twelve people on the waiting lists die each day.

An even larger number of Americans with kidney failure — more than a half million — depend on grueling dialysis treatments to survive. In large part because of the scarcity of human organs, the vast majority of dialysis patients do not qualify for transplants, which are reserved for those most likely to thrive after the procedure.

The surgery, carried out at N.Y.U. Langone Health, was first reported by USA Today on Tuesday. The research has not yet been peer-reviewed nor published in a medical journal.

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A surgical team at the hospital in New York examined a pig kidney attached to the body of a deceased recipient for any signs of rejection.
Credit…Joe Carrotta/NYU Langone Health, via Associated Press

The transplanted kidney was obtained from a pig genetically engineered to grow an organ unlikely to be rejected by the human body. In a close approximation of an actual transplant procedure, the kidney was attached to a person who had suffered brain death and was maintained on a ventilator.

The kidney, attached to blood vessels in the upper leg outside the abdomen, started functioning normally, making urine and the waste product creatinine “almost immediately,” according to Dr. Robert Montgomery, the director of the N.Y.U. Langone Transplant Institute, who performed the procedure in September.

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