US man Tim Andrews has been broken the record for the longest length of time with a genetically modified animal organ. He hopes more people will receive GM pig kidneys as clinical trials ramp up.
Tim Andrews has lived with a pig kidney for eight months in a new record for a gene-edited animal organ transplant.A US man who received a gene-edited pig kidney has lived a record-breaking eight months without his body rejecting the organ.
Expanded clinical trials of pig kidney transplants will start in the US this year and other researchers are exploring the viability of porcine lung and heart transplants."Sometimes it's the only thing I can think about, keeping Wilma alive," he said.Before his transplant at the end of January this year, Mr Andrews had been on dialysis for two years after an end-stage kidney disease diagnosis.But with his rare O-type blood Mr Andrews was looking at a seven-year wait for a human kidney to become available. A two-year difference which he joked was "a little bit of a gap". More than 100,000 people are on a waitlist for an organ transplant in the US, and 89,000 of them need a kidney.So Mr Andrews decided to take a different route: experimental surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston to receive an animal organ genetically altered by scientists that, hopefully, would not be rejected by his body.And now, eight months later, the 67-year-old has nearly doubled the previous record for living with a functioning pig kidney."Because then it's worthwhile to take these kidneys and start using them so people can get out of that situation for at least a year." Going over the six-month milestone is exciting researchers in the field of animal-to-human organ transplants, known as xenotransplantation. Pre-clinical trials will soon ramp-up in the US with eGenesis, the biotech company that edited Wilma, receiving approval to do more transplants with 33 people over the age of 50 with end-stage kidney failure. Another US company, United Therapeutics, has approval to trial up to 50 transplants with their own modified pig kidney. Xenotransplantation researcher Wayne Hawthorne, a professor of transplantation at Westmead Hospital in Sydney, said it was exciting to see how far the field had come."And as they improve and the outcomes are extended for these patients, we'll actually be able to transplant more patients," he said.A long and controversial history So how did we get to this point that a pig kidney could be placed into a completely different species of mammal? The idea of xenotransplantation and transfer of living tissue between species goes right back to at least the 17th century. One of the earliest recorded cases of an animal to human surgery was in 1667 when a French physician performed a blood infusion from a lamb into a 15-year-old boy. The child survived. Others did not and France put a moratorium on blood transfusions a few years later. Organ transplants were then attempted in 1906 by another French doctor who attached a pig or goat kidney to the elbow of two different patients.Up until 1996, most attempts at pig and monkey kidney transplants into people lasted from a few hours to 70 days. Although there was one outlier in the 1960s where a woman lived for nine months after receiving a chimpanzee kidney. The problem in most of these cases was that human bodies quickly rejected these organs because of their genetic differences. Greater success has been seen in the field of xenografts where skin, bone and tendons from animals, which can be sterilised or decellularised, has been adopted in medicine.Australian researchers are even hoping in the next year to be approved to trial kangaroo tendons for ACL repair in the knee. Using animals for these kinds of surgeries provides a supply of biological material where human sources aren't available. Skin from the fish species tilapia is used in Brazil to help treat burns. The skin has high amounts of collagen and a morphological structure that's similar to human skin.New gene editing tools like CRISPR — a sort of molecular scissors that allows you to make cuts and alterations to the DNA of an organism — could make animal organ transplants just as commonplace. Tim Andrews's new kidney had 69 genetic edits including the deactivation of a pig retrovirus and the addition of human genes to reduce inflammation and try to avoid rejection. He was the fifth person to receive an edited pig kidney. A sixth recipient, 54-year-old Bill Stewart, has now gone three months with a pig kidney from the same hospitalOther pig organs like lungs and hearts have been modified and transplanted to people in recent years. A pig heart recipient lived for two months in 2022 after his surgery but may have died in part due to a porcine virus that was missed.Pigs have become popular for these types of studies as they can be reared quickly and in large litters with organs close in size to a human. Tendons from the rear leg of pigs are routinely used in human surgeries, but now gene-edited lungs, hearts and kidneys have all been transplanted into people in recent years.Back in Australia, Professor Hawthorne's research is about transplanting insulin-producing islet cells from the pancreas of a pig into humans with type 1 diabetes."Our hope is that we can start, potentially in the next few years, to do a small clinical trial treating type 1 diabetic patients," he said. "But also then it could potentially expand to become a kidney transplant program ... that's the broader hope."was 1,922 as of the start of September with the majority of those people — 76 per cent — in need of a kidney.The RSPCA is against the practice, but states that where it does occur, welfare standards should be monitored to ensure a good quality of life for the animals. Syd Johnson, a professor of bioethics at Upstate Medical University in the US, is sceptical that pig-to-human transplants will become safe, effective and long-term options for patients. And, she said, gene-edited donor animals were being treated like machines "for the sole purpose of growing a product and disassembling them to provide these spare parts for humans." "I think this is an opportunity for us to reflect on what we are doing when we are creating animals and treating them in this way."Professor Johnson was also concerned by how an organ market would be controlled by for-profit companies versus the current human donation model. "What will be the cost to buy an organ? And who's going to pay that cost? And how will equity and justice be ensured?" Organ equity is a concern shared by Dominique Martin, a professor of health ethics and professionalism at Deakin University School of Medicine."It's maybe not desirable from even the pig's perspective, but I think it would be good to start thinking about those animals as different," Professor Martin said."My hope at this stage is that we are going to very soon see several people who are surviving and doing well a year out from a pig kidney transplant," Professor Martin said."To me, I think you should do it because it's the life of a human," he said."I got a letter from the Vatican that said, basically they agree these are animals that were put on earth for man's service and what better service to man is keeping someone alive."Mr Andrews has been in and out of hospital since his surgery and usually gets a check-up twice a week with his doctors."When I committed to this 100 per cent I didn't kid. No matter how bad it gets ... you struggle on, you fight on." And by fighting on others might have hope and see there may be more options, said Mr Andrews, rather than sitting in a dialysis chair "waiting to die"."I'm sitting here by a beautiful lake with my sister. Life is beautiful. Weather's beautiful. What more can you ask out of life?"Photo shows Donald Trump and Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stand shoulder to shoulder and pose for a photo at the entrance of the White House.Photo shows A man in a suit points and looks on.Photo shows Patrick Dangerfield and Lachie Neale smile while holding the premiership cup and standing in front of a crowd of fansPhoto shows A woman in a navy hoodie with a hat standing next to a grey mare next to a dirt track in green grass.
Pig Kidneys Xenotransplants Xenotransplantation What Is Xenotransplantation What Is A Pig Organ Transplant? What Is A Xenograft? Is There Xenotransplantation In Australia? Can I Get A Pig Kidney?
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