How comfortable would you feel if you needed a transplant, but the organ was coming from an animal?
The very first transplant of a pig’s heart to a man happened at a Maryland hospital last week. The man receiving the pig’s heart is not eligible for the human list. He’s only 57 with little time left and no other options. So, he was offered a pig’s heart. This isn’t just any pig’s heart. Scientists had done gene editing. They literally changed its DNA. In this case, so that its cells produced less of the sugar that makes human bodies reject transplants.
Last year, doctors attached a gene edited pig kidney to a woman on life support machines to test whether it would be rejected. It lasted until family shut the machines off. Chinese doctors have transplanted pig corneas to people’s eyes. Pig heart valves have been used in humans for decades.
As of today, the pig heart recipient is on a heart lung machine. It’ll be weeks of recovery before doctors can tell how well it’s working.