The first human to receive a genetically engineered pig heart survived two months. Surgeons are hoping this transplant will last longer.
With any organ transplant, doctors are trying to balance how to prevent infections while tamping down the immune system. Without immunosuppressive drugs, the transplant organ will be rejected. But giving patients too much of these drugs makes them susceptible to infections.
The Maryland doctors are taking different steps to prevent Faucette’s new heart from being rejected. For one, they told WIRED in December that they had developed a new, more sensitive test to detect very small amounts of pig virus DNA. Before the latest transplant, they tested the donor pig regularly for CMV and other porcine viruses, as well as bacteria and parasites.
When the Maryland surgeons performed Bennett’s transplant in January 2022, they didn’t have access to Eledon’s drug because it had not yet been tested in humans. Now, more than 100 people have received the drug in early clinical trials. Tegoprubart has also been tested in non-human primates and been shown to increase the life of transplanted pig organs in those animals.
showing that a genetically modified pig kidney functioned normally in a brain-dead patient for a week.that it kept a pig kidney working for two months in a brain-dead person.
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