U.S. researchers are reporting the latest in a string of experiments in the quest to save human lives with organs from genetically modified pigs. This time, in a step-by-step rehearsal, Alabama surgeons transplanted pig kidneys into a donated body.
But scientists still needed to learn more about how to test such transplants without risking a patient’s life. With the help of a family who donated a loved one’s body for science, Locke mimicked the way human organ transplants are done — from removing the pig “donor” kidneys to sewing them inside the deceased man’s abdomen.
But Locke said the kidney experiment could have more far-reaching impact -- because it shows that a brain-dead body can be a much-needed human model to test potential new medical treatments. Animal-to-human transplants, what’s called xenotransplantation, have been attempted without success for decades. People’s immune systems almost instantly attack the foreign tissue. But scientists now have new techniques to edit pig genes so their organs are more human-like — and some are anxious to try again.
Hurdles remain before formal testing in people begins, including deciding who would qualify to test a pig organ, said Karen Maschke, a research scholar at the Hastings Center who will help develop ethics and policy recommendations for the first clinical trials under a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
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