Kidney from GM pig transplanted into man

A KIDNEY from a genetically modified pig has been transplanted into a living human being for the first time.

The organ had 69 genetic alterations to make it less porcine in appearance and safer for a human recipient.

The four-hour procedure took place on March 16 and was a success, with the patient, Richard “Rick” Slayman, said to be recovering well.

The 62-year-old has diabetes, high blood pressure and end-stage kidney failure. He had previously received a human kidney transplant but that organ started to fail last year. Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston recommended the xenotransplantation option to Mr Slayman as a possible route to avoid more dialysis and further deterioration.

Until now modified pig kidneys had only been used in experimental transplants on brain-dead individuals being kept alive by machines.

Mr Slayman is taking an assortment of drugs to prevent his body rejecting the foreign organ. In three previous experiments on brain-dead individuals the transplanted porcine kidneys lasted for 77 hours, seven days and 32 days.

Last year, Harvard scientists published data on monkeys given transplanted organs from Yucatan miniature pigs. Half of the animals survived for more than a month; the average length of survival was 176 days. One monkey survived for 758 days.

“We are grateful for the courageous contribution of the patient and to the advancement of transplantation science,” said Michael Curtis, chief executive officer of egenesis, the company that grew the genetically modified pig whose organ was used in the surgery.

“This represents a new frontier in medicine and demonstrates the potential of genome engineering to change the lives of millions of patients globally suffering from kidney failure.”