A 62-year-old man with end-stage kidney disease became the first person to receive a new, genetically modified pig kidney, doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston said Thursday.
The four-hour operation, performed on March 16, “represents an important milestone in the search for organs that will be more easily accessible to patients,” the hospital said in a statement, citing Reuters.
The patient, Richard Slayman of Weymouth, Massachusetts, is recovering well and is expected to be released soon, the hospital said.
Sleiman received a human kidney transplant at the same hospital in 2018 after seven years of dialysis, but the organ failed five years later and he resumed dialysis treatment.
The kidney was provided by eGenesis of Cambridge, Massachusetts, from a pig that had been genetically modified to remove genes harmful to the human recipient and to add certain human genes to improve compatibility. The company also inactivated viruses native to pigs that can infect humans.
In January 2022, a University of Maryland team transplanted a genetically modified pig heart into a 57-year-old man with terminal heart disease, but he died two months later.
Author: morning Post
Source: CM Jornal
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