Longest living pig kidney transplant recipient: Shot

NEW YORK – Towana Looney is waiting for check-in with a doctor at Nyu Langone Health when he registers that he has passed a major milestone in recovery from a kidney transplant.

In late November, she became the first person in the world to receive a new kind of genetically modified pig kidney. It's now two months have passed.

The other four patients previously received kidneys from different types of genetically modified pigs or manipulated pig hearts, but none survived long.

“I never realized I would be the longest living person with animal organs,” says Rooney, who has a home in Gadsden, Alabama (which is amazing.”

Rooney says she hasn't felt this bad since she had kidney failure eight years ago.

“It feels good,” she says. “A lot of energy. I was walking down a lot of blocks. One day I was walking 10 blocks.”

This is a big change since the year she spent on dialysis.

“When I was on dialysis, [I] I was unable to walk long distances because I was not out of breath. And now it's like this: Go, Go, Go! It's like a completely new world, and it feels completely different. ”

Her appetite is also thundering.

“I can't stop eating,” she says with a laugh. “Before I got my kidneys, I was tired and nauseated, and I didn't feel like I had the energy to eat.

Since being discharged from an apartment near the hospital, she has been sightseeing, shopping and exploring Manhattan.

Rooney has to stop by the hospital every morning to make sure she's still okay. However, doctors hope that she will be able to return home to Alabama in about a month.

“She does very well,” says the doctor. Robert MontgomeryDirector of NYU Langone's Transplant Research Institute, who led the Rooney business. “If you pass a Towana on the street, there's no idea that you're the only person in the world walking around with a functional pig kidney. That's a big deal.”

NPR was now able to access the operating room for experimental procedures on November 25th.

Montgomery, who received a human heart transplant himself in 2018, says researchers hope that one day GMO organs in modified pigs can solve organ shortages and save thousands of lives each year.

“It seems futuristic,” he says. “It seems like something I don't see and it's going to be such a big part of my life.”

However, Montgomery emphasizes that no one knows how long Rooney's pig's kidneys last.

“I hope it lasts for a long time,” he says, “but we are in unknown territory.”

Some researchers worry that pig organs can spread animal viruses to people and about breeding and genocide animals for organs.

Some bioethicists have questioned the experiments of hopeless patients. Critics also say no one really knows how well gene-edited pig organs work until researchers conduct large-scale, careful research.

Rooney and other patients can receive pig organs because they created exceptions to the usual clinical research requirements so that they can try very experimental treatments against patients who have exhausted other options. I did.

However, previously carried out transplants provide limited evidence outside of rigorous clinical trials.

“If this person has lived for a long time, whatever it is, six months, a year, long – in pig kidneys, it is impossible to conclude that this is the solution to organ shortages,” he says. Michael Gusmanoa bioethicist at Lehigh University Health University.

The FDA can give green light to this year's survey United TherapeuticsI own it RevivicorBlacksburg, Virginia, Biotechnology Company is developing organs that Rooney has received, including the kidneys. NPR also had exclusive access to Revivicor's research farm reports last year. Rival company, Egnesisalso testing another type of modified pig organ in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In the meantime, Rooney looks forward to returning home to her husband, two daughters and two grandchildren. She also wants to resume work as cashier for General Dollar and travel more.

She says she “is grateful to be alive.” “It's the greatest gift of all living. It gives you a new way of looking at life. It's just like having a second chance in life. It's truly amazing.”