Second patient receives gene-edited pig kidney transplant in groundbreaking surgery

Lisa Pisano, a 54-year-old woman from New Jersey, became the second survivor to receive a gene-edited pig kidney transplant. Doctors also implanted a mechanical heart pump, making Pisano the first person to receive both a heart pump and an organ transplant. statement from NYU Langone Health, where the procedure was performed.

Pisano suffers from heart failure and end-stage renal disease and was on dialysis before the surgery. Due to her medical condition, she was not eligible for a heart and kidney transplant from a human donor. The Food and Drug Administration has approved this experimental procedure. “Compassionate Use” Program For patients with serious or immediately life-threatening conditions.

New York University's team announced Wednesday that Pisano is recovering well, the newspaper's Laurent Neergaard reported. Associated Press (AP).

“I feel great,” Pisano said from the hospital during a Zoom press conference Wednesday. wiredI'm Emily Marin. “When this opportunity came up, I said, 'I'm going to take advantage of this.'”

Pisano has shown no signs of refusing the transplant so far, but the moment of truth may not come until a month after surgery. robert montgomery“It's important to know what you're going to do,” said the person who led the operation and is director of New York University Langone's Transplant Research Institute. scientific americanI'm Tanya Lewis.

Montgomery says NPRRob Stein said Pisano will likely need to be hospitalized for several months. He can't predict how much time this surgery will buy her.

“We're optimistic that she'll be able to go home and spend time with her children and grandchildren and live a comfortable life,” he told NPR.

Patients with symptoms like Pisano's are not regular candidates for transplantation. This is partly because the chances of survival are low and there are currently not enough organs available to meet the vast needs. Over 100,000 people are participating Nationwide transplant waiting listOf the approximately 808,000 people with end-stage kidney disease in the United States, only about 27,000 received transplants last year, according to a statement from New York University.

Scientists hope pig organs are possible fight this shortage And help more people receive transplants.The New York University team has previously conducted transplant experiments. Gene-edited pig organs into the brain dead patient with the consent of the family.I've had the transplant twice. pig heart in deceased human patients.

Two surviving patients who had heart failure received pig heart transplants. The first lived for two months after surgery, but the second died after surgery. 6 weeks.

Last month, a patient at Massachusetts General Hospital received the first pig kidney transplant.he was there I was discharged from the hospital Continuing from early April recover at home.

“I think it's incredibly exciting that a second gene-edited pig kidney will be transplanted into a living human.” jamie locksays a transplant surgeon at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who has previously transplanted pig kidneys into brain-dead patients. scientific american.

Pisano first received a heart pump implant on April 4, according to New York University. Without the device, she would have only lived for a few days or weeks. She then received her gene-edited pig kidney in a second surgery on April 12th.

“She would not have been an eligible candidate for a kidney transplant if it were not a possibility.” [a heart pump] This is because patients undergoing dialysis using heart pumps have a high mortality rate. ” Nader MoazamiThe New York University heart surgeon who performed the heart pump surgery said in a statement:

Pig kidneys were genetically modified to block the production of a sugar called alpha-gal. In previous studies, researchers had shown that making this edit prevents the recipient's immune system from rejecting the transplant. The research team also attached pig thymus tissue to the tissue to reduce the chance of rejection.

Some experts question the ethics of such experiments.

“I think there are concerns about doing experiments in this way that finds the most desperate patients who have no other options.” L. Sid JohnsonA bioethicist at Upstate Medical University in New York told NPR. “Maybe those patients will benefit. Maybe they believe they have a benefit and it's worth the risk. But when we do these experiments, we don't put particularly vulnerable people at risk. I am concerned that they are taking advantage of some desperate patients.”

Doctors say this transplant, like last month's, will provide important information about the safety and effectiveness of the surgery.

“As with any transplant, we want to control the immune system in the early stages and make sure there's no early rejection,” Dr. Locke says. scientific american. “If this works, it's an incredibly positive thing.”