On 16 March, Richard Slayman became the first living person to receive a genetically modified pig kidney. Less than one month later, Lisa Pisano became the second. Now, Towana Looney has become the third, having undergone the procedure on 25 November.
All three of the surgeries mark a significant achievement in xenotransplantation, the transfer of animal organs to people, and have laid the groundwork for a small human trial to hopefully begin within a year, said at NYU Langone 午夜福利1000集合 during a press conference on 17 December.
While both Slayman and Pisano died shortly after their surgeries, Looney appears to be 鈥渢he picture of health鈥�, said Montgomery. She was discharged from the hospital 11 days after the procedure and has had normal kidney function since.
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Only two other people have received a genetically modified animal organ while alive: David Bennett in 2022 and Lawrence Faucette in 2023. Both were recipients of transplanted pig hearts and experienced complications, which may have contributed to their deaths. Surgeons have also previously transplanted pig kidneys into non-human primates and people who were brain dead and on life support.
These procedures paved the way for at Massachusetts General Hospital and his colleagues to transplant a pig kidney into Slayman, aged 62, who was experiencing complications from dialysis and had kidney failure, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
His doctors estimated that there was less than a 5 per cent chance he would get a donor human kidney in the next five years, by which point there was a greater than 75 per cent chance he would have died or become too sick for a transplant. 鈥淯nfortunately, there was no other treatment available,鈥� says Riella.
The organ he received had undergone 69 genetic modifications to make it more compatible with humans and reduce the likelihood of it being rejected by his immune system.
The procedure lasted 4 hours and Slayman was discharged from the hospital within days, but died 52 days later from cardiac arrest. The autopsy showed no connection between his death and the pig kidney, which appeared to be healthy, says Riella.
at NYU Langone 午夜福利1000集合 in New York and his team performed a similar operation on Pisano, aged 54, on 12 April. Pisano, who had both heart and kidney failure, had been fitted with a mechanical heart pump about a week earlier.
The surgeons had to remove the pig kidney after 47 days because it was being damaged by Pisano鈥檚 heart medications. She died in July. It is highly unfortunate that both of these recipients died, but it is still reassuring that neither of the transplanted pig kidneys appears to have directly contributed to their deaths, says Riella.
It is also encouraging that Looney, aged 53, has been in good health since her surgery three weeks ago. Part of the reason may be that she wasn鈥檛 as ill as Slayman and Pisano at the time of transplant, said Montgomery.
Looney donated a kidney to her mother in 1999. Her remaining one failed in 2016 after she experienced preeclampsia during a previous pregnancy, which led to high blood pressure and damaged her kidney. Montgomery said in a statement that it has been all but impossible to find her another human kidney due to unusually high levels of antibodies in her blood, which increase the risk of rejection with a donor organ. After nearly eight years on the transplant waiting list, she and her doctors decided to try a gene-edited pig kidney instead.
鈥淚鈥檓 overjoyed and blessed to have received this gift,鈥� said Looney during the press conference. 鈥淎 second chance at life 鈥� that鈥檚 how I feel.鈥�
More than 100,000 people are awaiting an organ transplant in the US, 17 of whom die each day. 鈥淚t is the most devastating thing to see someone pass away while they鈥檙e waiting for an organ,鈥� says Stern. 鈥淢y hope is that xenotransplantation will make it so that one day, no one has to go without an organ.鈥�
