The pig kidney worked in the human body for 54 hours. The animal organ was attached to the large vessels in the human thigh but was kept outside the body for observation for 2 days.
This is a small step in a decades-old effort to use animal organs for one-day life-saving transplants. Sugar in pig cells foreign to the human body causes immediate organ rejection. In this experiment, the kidney came from a genetically modified animal intended to eliminate this sugar and avoid attacking the human immune system. Kidney function was monitored for two days and functioned just like a human donor organ.
“Maybe it means a change in one thing, it boosts our efforts, it gives us confidence that it’s OK, it’s working. I think it’s going to speed up that process. The organ shortages and queues have come close,” said Robert Montgomery, president of the Langone Transplant Institute, “after a year or two of right Now”.
The test subject introduced its members
Test surgery was performed with family consent on a deceased woman who was placed on a ventilator at all times. The woman, still in her life, had arranged for her organ donation, but unfortunately she was not suitable for the donation.
The director of the enterprise himself is involved. Montgomery underwent a heart transplant three years ago. He got the heart from a hepatitis C donor because he was also one of those willing to accept any organ.
More than 90,000 people in the United States are waiting for a kidney transplant. 12 people die from the waiting list every day. Transplanting human pigs could be a big step towards solving the organ shortage problem.
