First pig kidney in a human: Is this the future of transplants?
Al Jazeera
Could the successful transplant of a gene-edited pig kidney to a human spell the end of the organ shortage crisis?
The first man to receive a genetically modified kidney transplant from a pig was discharged from hospital on Wednesday last week.
Richard “Rick” Slayman, 62, who had been suffering from end-stage kidney disease, no longer needs dialysis after the groundbreaking procedure at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School’s biggest teaching hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
Slayman had been diagnosed with end-stage renal disease, which means his kidneys could not function on their own. He was placed on dialysis from 2011 until 2018 when he received his first kidney transplant from a human donor at MGH.
About five years later, the transplanted kidney started showing signs of failure and, in May 2023, Slayman restarted dialysis. After this, he started experiencing complications associated with dialysis which are common among dialysis patients. Hence, he required regular hospital visits for de-clotting and surgical revisions, which affected his quality of life.
The “gene-edited” pig kidney was provided by eGenesis, a biotechnology company in Cambridge, Massachusetts which develops human-compatible engineered organs. The company removed harmful pig DNA from the pig donor using genetic editing, and added human DNA to make the kidney more compatible with the human body.
