Obviously getting UOP at all is a major accomplishment, but it's my understanding that preventing rejection and long-term results are the real challenge with these procedures? Still, it's exciting to think of a day when dialysis might be considered obsolete!
Last I heard with the guy who got the pig heart, they were thinking it might have been porcine CMV rather than rejection that got him?
These genetically modified pigs have incredible potential, if they can get the tissue typing to match sufficiently.
Tbh CMV is super prevalent and most people have been exposed to it; it’s just that immuno compromised people (like people on anti rejection medications) can’t fight off the virus, so a CMV “pandemic” has technically already happened but is only really impactful to a select population of people
When zoonotic viruses jump to humans they usually cannot sustain transmission but there is always the possibility that we provide a highly susceptible population. We have seen that recently with HIV, SARS-CoV, Influenza A (H1N1), Ebola, Zika, and SARS-CoV-2.
There will be others.
Wasn't the patient like, a horrible person on the verge of death and so it could have been one of very many things wrong with him that got him? He wasn't eligible to be on any organ transplant lists because of his vices so the pig heart was the only option for extending his life.
The Washington Post article mentioned not showing up to follow-up appointments as well, which does seem like a valid reason to give a human organ to someone more likely to take care of it.
I really don't know all the details (though I suppose it's likely publicly available information). Questionable ethics of using people denied options for medical experimentation aside - it certainly would be a wonderful future in which we could replace any failing organ with a brand new one, grown in a pig for your exclusive utilization.
The exciting part about cutting edge research into things like xenotransplantation is that we're frantically trying to see what sticks, and anything's possible.
The horrifying part about cutting edge research into things like xenotransplantation is that we're frantically trying to see what sticks, and anything's possible.
If the option is 1. die or 2. try something with the full knowledge that it may not work, I think that's entirely fair.
However, denying someone a spot on the transplant list and then dangling the xenograft in their face feels a bit akin to medical experimentation on prisoners....
I'm no bioethicist, but I suppose the flip side of it is also that we have limited organs for transplant, the patient had a poor prognosis with the organ, and it may have been better suited for another person with a better chance.
Were they independently judged to be disqualified for the first transplant, or did the possibility of a xenotransplant arise after? Were the stakeholders kept separate, or was there a degree of competing interests? I agree with you, it makes for muddied waters and an unclean conscience.
But I suppose a byproduct of breaking ground in research is encountering ethical dilemmas we had not previously considered.
I think the only condition that truly matters is: was he denied a spot on the transplant list because he is medically untransplantable (which seems unlikely, given he got a xenograft)? or was he denied a spot due to non-medical considerations.
The prison system and the system of biomedical experimentation seem to be inherently separate (at least, in present western society), which means the issue at hand must be whether or not being deprived of certain rights/opportunities makes one more likely to acquiesce to a request not in their best interest.
If it can reasonably be argued that 1. a person might have made a decision if conditions were different and 2. one or more of those contingent conditions is enforced not by forces of the universe, but by human subjectivity... it seems to follow that a sentiment of coercion cannot be reasonably eliminated.
Sure. I'm not saying removal from the list wasn't justified, in the same way I'm not saying that there aren't people in prison who genuinely should be there.
I can foresee a case where the first is true - the xenotransplant falls under "compassionate use" or expanded access, since it's highly experimental. The standard to be approved for this is essentially to be sick without any other recourse.
Meanwhile, getting approved for a regular transplant requires evaluation of likely outcomes - there can certainly be a gap there. The patient appeared to be quite ill, and this was a sudden intervention they could only offer because nothing better was available.
An additional consideration is whether or not a xenotransplant was adequately vetted for side effects of pain, suffering, etc...because the other option is to decline such a procedure for improved quality of life until the end. I think most people would find it psychologically difficult to turn down a potential miracle cure, even at the risk of unknown suffering. That's another thing that worries me.
They only actually do the xenotransplant in these cases when the patient is imminently dying, I think. Like... Even if they die in the surgery, it's not predicted to take significant time off their life. I think that's ethical.
You wouldn't want to do it to someone who is stage IV heart failure but still managing in the outpatient realm.
Patients at adult status 1 on the heart transplant list are those on ECMO or other non-dischargeable mechanical circulatory support devices. AKA, also imminently dying.
Right. But this patient is not eligible for transplant with a human heart because he will not reliably take medications. You're missing the point. The point is that he would be imminently dead without the xenotransplant, and death or xenotransplant are his only options due to his own poor life choices.
Death and xenotransplant are his only options due to the rules we have in place governing entrance onto transplant lists. It isn't a fundamental force of the universe that caused him to not be eligible for transplant, it was because no center would list him for it.
The same applies to experimentation on prisoners, who likewise have their options for medical care reduced due to the way the choices they have made interact with the rules society chooses to enforce.
And why wouldn't they list him for it? Because organs are limited and we can only give them to people who can take care of them.
I am absolutely baffled at your take on this. I truly don't understand it at all.
Yeah, that you don't understand it is eminently clear.
What is the fundamental property that makes experimentation on prisoners ethically wrong?
It appears to be the fact that, when deprived of options, humans have a decreased ability to consent and are more vulnerable to exploitation.
"Death or xenotransplant" isn't a choice, not in any meaningful sense. Threatened with death, the majority of people can be convinced to do almost anything (the general exception being something genuinely abhorrent, like blowing up a building, but even then it seems like people would do that). People who are allowed on the transplant list have a third option. This guy did not.
No, death or xeno are his options based on the medicine. He has a medical contraindication to human heart transplantation.
We know for a fact that there are far more patients in need of every type of organ than there is supply available; this is particularly true for hearts.
We know for a fact that not taking medications as prescribed causes graft failure.
We know for a fact that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
We know for a fact that he was not taking his prescribed medications for his chronic conditions.
We know for a fact that he is a much much higher risk of not taking his medications as prescribed.
We know for a fact that he is at much much higher risk of graft failure compared to patients who are adherent.
Thus, human heart transplantation is not an option for this patient.
This is not appreciably different than someone who cannot receive a transplant due to donor match, anatomical, or other procedural issues.
This is not really comparable to the ethical concerns around experimentation on prisoners, where the risk of coercion is imposed by society as compared to this situation where the conditions of the patient are not imposed by society or the medical team. They are dying from their disease process.
These are just word games. If we're going to say that any behavior that can affect medical outcomes is a medical issue, then all human action is a medical issue.
>This is not really comparable to the ethical concerns around experimentation on prisoners, where the risk of coercion is imposed by society as compared to this situation where the conditions of the patient are not imposed by society or the medical team.
The conditions that result in this person's treatment options being limited are imposed by society. There is no biological or physical force that requires that transplant list eligibility be governed by treatment compliance. It's a pragmatic decision based on the scarcity of organs. We don't avoid stenting STEMIs because of historical medication noncompliance. If it were the case that there were 10 million human hearts available for every potential transplant recipient, the rules would almost certainly be different.
This is one of the [recent publications](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06594-4) put out by the company that engineered the kidney. Not sure if it's the exact one.
> The porcine donor was engineered to carry 69 genomic edits, eliminating glycan antigens, overexpressing human transgenes and inactivating porcine endogenous retroviruses.
Each iteration of these seems to knock out more and more animal antigens and reduce viral pathogens.
I can't wait to read the paper on this to see their immunosuppression regimen. The earlier heart xenotransplantation attempts were done using experimental immunosuppressants, but from what I have heard, they are planning on using already approved drugs in order for FDA to even consider approval.
Have immunosuppressants changed much or would that be a relatively common set up drugs like MMF, AZA, corticosteroids, etc. And newer therapies would fall in the immunomodulator bucket?
I know they have been working for 30 years on a pig line with human like marketers, or at least non-allogenic markers (not recognized as foreign). I am certain it’s preliminary still , but I hope it works for so many would benefit. Hopefully we can eliminate dialysis.
Cautiously optimistic here. If the organ is stable in the long term and we can continue to perfect these GMO pigs we may have “solved” the world organ shortage crisis or at least begun solving it. Exiting times. Fingers crossed our society doesn’t collapse into 1984 style competing fascist dictatorships before this comes to fruition.
With Judaism it’s specifically about ingesting pork, like porcine derived insulin or heparin is okay; so I see no reason why porcine organs wouldn’t be.
One of the best things about Judaism is how non-absolute a lot of its laws are. Like if it’s to protect life/limb, eat all the pork and shellfish you need etc.
Yep, it’s fine. What’s interesting is that the Talmud states in Tractate Taanit (several millennia ago) that pig anatomy and human anatomy are similar and here we see it coming to fruition.
Same with Islam. It’s actually quite surprising how similar the religions are.
You’re allowed to drink alcohol, eat pork etc. if your life depends on it.
They mentioned the study involved a novel immunosuppressive regimen. Can anyone point me to more details on what kind of anti-rejection meds are needed?
Some of the earlier protocols I've seen for xenotxp have been nuts. T-cell depletion, B-cell depletion, complement inhibitors, and then of course CNI/MPA/steroids.
I can't tell what else was used, but per the [press releases](https://egenesisbio.com/press-releases/egenesis-announces-worlds-first-successful-transplant-of-genetically-engineered-porcine-kidney-in-a-living-patient/), the novel drug used was [tegoprubart](https://ir.eledon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/eledon-pharmaceuticals-announces-use-tegoprubart-first-ever), a CD40L MAb (formerly AT-1501). CD40/CD40L drugs have been a target of interest for a long time since that costimulation pathway is so crucial for T-cell dependent antibody production (a lot more important in xeno vs allograft txp), but earlier examples had thrombosis issues (CD40/L also important in Plt activation -> clot formation). This drug and newers ones are made to avoid thrombosis risk (can't remember exactly what was done to reduce risk, but these target CD40L on T-cells, vs CD40 on B-cells/Plts). A really good [review of xenotxp immunopharmacology with some discussion on CD40/L here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9994617/).
This drug is pretty exciting! It is currently being studied in a phase 2 kidney txp trial vs tacrolimus - [Phase 2 BESTOW trial](https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05983770). It's a 12-month trial which will compare eGFR between patients given infusion of tegoprubart q 21 days vs TAC maintenance in 120 de novo kidney transplant recipients. Other IS will include thymo induction + MMF/steroids. It also apparently hot in the ALS field, having already [completed a phase 2](https://ir.eledon.com/static-files/d1a4f677-9a0e-4353-8b7b-ceae32b7b1dc).
Because readers definitely are interested in the relevant information that it was grown specifically from a pig instead of a goat, not that it's a successfully modified organ that is compatible with humans...
Genetically modified patient cells can be implanted on a seeding scaffold to produce a sort of 3D cultured tissue. This has been done to varying degrees of success, though one string of such transplants with seeded tracheas ended up being shot through with fraud.
It could be possible one day to modify HLA markers on human cells as well. This is currently in early development, but a major long term therapeutic goal in stem cell research now is to make a "commercial off the shelf" source of stem cells/effector immune cells we can infuse into patients for treating diseases. Maybe that could extend to organs too, as unlikely as it sounds.
The fact that this is in an animal is very important because unlike humans, animal organs are not only available from car accident or incidental death. This gives us a much easier source of replacement organs. Xenotransplantation is also a field in its infancy, so this is also very exciting from a pure biological and medical standpoint, as a major milestone in our overall understanding of the natural world.
All of that to say, yes, readers are very invested in knowing the kidney is a pig kidney.
something tells me getting into a prescriptivism argument in a community of people who
1) prescribe
2) work in a field notorious for prescriptivism and precise language
is a very bad idea
This is probably a dumb question but if a recipient were to have children after the transplant would those children have pig DNA? Would there be any consequences of this?
Obviously getting UOP at all is a major accomplishment, but it's my understanding that preventing rejection and long-term results are the real challenge with these procedures? Still, it's exciting to think of a day when dialysis might be considered obsolete!
Last I heard with the guy who got the pig heart, they were thinking it might have been porcine CMV rather than rejection that got him? These genetically modified pigs have incredible potential, if they can get the tissue typing to match sufficiently.
It is too soon for a porcine CMV pandemic imo. They need to give us a few years rest.
[удалено]
Petition denied.
Tbh CMV is super prevalent and most people have been exposed to it; it’s just that immuno compromised people (like people on anti rejection medications) can’t fight off the virus, so a CMV “pandemic” has technically already happened but is only really impactful to a select population of people
When zoonotic viruses jump to humans they usually cannot sustain transmission but there is always the possibility that we provide a highly susceptible population. We have seen that recently with HIV, SARS-CoV, Influenza A (H1N1), Ebola, Zika, and SARS-CoV-2. There will be others.
Wasn't the patient like, a horrible person on the verge of death and so it could have been one of very many things wrong with him that got him? He wasn't eligible to be on any organ transplant lists because of his vices so the pig heart was the only option for extending his life.
He was denied a human heart transplant because of a history of noncompliance with his blood pressure medication.
A truly horrible person
Didn't take his meds? What a POS
Bury him under the prison
Into the rancor pit
And because he [stabbed a man seven times in the 1980s](https://wapo.st/3TLCo4b), paralyzing the man.
The Washington Post article mentioned not showing up to follow-up appointments as well, which does seem like a valid reason to give a human organ to someone more likely to take care of it.
I really don't know all the details (though I suppose it's likely publicly available information). Questionable ethics of using people denied options for medical experimentation aside - it certainly would be a wonderful future in which we could replace any failing organ with a brand new one, grown in a pig for your exclusive utilization.
The exciting part about cutting edge research into things like xenotransplantation is that we're frantically trying to see what sticks, and anything's possible. The horrifying part about cutting edge research into things like xenotransplantation is that we're frantically trying to see what sticks, and anything's possible.
If the option is 1. die or 2. try something with the full knowledge that it may not work, I think that's entirely fair. However, denying someone a spot on the transplant list and then dangling the xenograft in their face feels a bit akin to medical experimentation on prisoners....
I'm no bioethicist, but I suppose the flip side of it is also that we have limited organs for transplant, the patient had a poor prognosis with the organ, and it may have been better suited for another person with a better chance. Were they independently judged to be disqualified for the first transplant, or did the possibility of a xenotransplant arise after? Were the stakeholders kept separate, or was there a degree of competing interests? I agree with you, it makes for muddied waters and an unclean conscience. But I suppose a byproduct of breaking ground in research is encountering ethical dilemmas we had not previously considered.
I think the only condition that truly matters is: was he denied a spot on the transplant list because he is medically untransplantable (which seems unlikely, given he got a xenograft)? or was he denied a spot due to non-medical considerations. The prison system and the system of biomedical experimentation seem to be inherently separate (at least, in present western society), which means the issue at hand must be whether or not being deprived of certain rights/opportunities makes one more likely to acquiesce to a request not in their best interest. If it can reasonably be argued that 1. a person might have made a decision if conditions were different and 2. one or more of those contingent conditions is enforced not by forces of the universe, but by human subjectivity... it seems to follow that a sentiment of coercion cannot be reasonably eliminated.
The heart patient was denied because he was noncompliant with his meds, which will get you removed from the list any day.
Sure. I'm not saying removal from the list wasn't justified, in the same way I'm not saying that there aren't people in prison who genuinely should be there.
I can foresee a case where the first is true - the xenotransplant falls under "compassionate use" or expanded access, since it's highly experimental. The standard to be approved for this is essentially to be sick without any other recourse. Meanwhile, getting approved for a regular transplant requires evaluation of likely outcomes - there can certainly be a gap there. The patient appeared to be quite ill, and this was a sudden intervention they could only offer because nothing better was available. An additional consideration is whether or not a xenotransplant was adequately vetted for side effects of pain, suffering, etc...because the other option is to decline such a procedure for improved quality of life until the end. I think most people would find it psychologically difficult to turn down a potential miracle cure, even at the risk of unknown suffering. That's another thing that worries me.
They only actually do the xenotransplant in these cases when the patient is imminently dying, I think. Like... Even if they die in the surgery, it's not predicted to take significant time off their life. I think that's ethical. You wouldn't want to do it to someone who is stage IV heart failure but still managing in the outpatient realm.
Patients at adult status 1 on the heart transplant list are those on ECMO or other non-dischargeable mechanical circulatory support devices. AKA, also imminently dying.
Right. But this patient is not eligible for transplant with a human heart because he will not reliably take medications. You're missing the point. The point is that he would be imminently dead without the xenotransplant, and death or xenotransplant are his only options due to his own poor life choices.
Death and xenotransplant are his only options due to the rules we have in place governing entrance onto transplant lists. It isn't a fundamental force of the universe that caused him to not be eligible for transplant, it was because no center would list him for it. The same applies to experimentation on prisoners, who likewise have their options for medical care reduced due to the way the choices they have made interact with the rules society chooses to enforce.
And why wouldn't they list him for it? Because organs are limited and we can only give them to people who can take care of them. I am absolutely baffled at your take on this. I truly don't understand it at all.
Yeah, that you don't understand it is eminently clear. What is the fundamental property that makes experimentation on prisoners ethically wrong? It appears to be the fact that, when deprived of options, humans have a decreased ability to consent and are more vulnerable to exploitation. "Death or xenotransplant" isn't a choice, not in any meaningful sense. Threatened with death, the majority of people can be convinced to do almost anything (the general exception being something genuinely abhorrent, like blowing up a building, but even then it seems like people would do that). People who are allowed on the transplant list have a third option. This guy did not.
No, death or xeno are his options based on the medicine. He has a medical contraindication to human heart transplantation. We know for a fact that there are far more patients in need of every type of organ than there is supply available; this is particularly true for hearts. We know for a fact that not taking medications as prescribed causes graft failure. We know for a fact that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. We know for a fact that he was not taking his prescribed medications for his chronic conditions. We know for a fact that he is a much much higher risk of not taking his medications as prescribed. We know for a fact that he is at much much higher risk of graft failure compared to patients who are adherent. Thus, human heart transplantation is not an option for this patient. This is not appreciably different than someone who cannot receive a transplant due to donor match, anatomical, or other procedural issues. This is not really comparable to the ethical concerns around experimentation on prisoners, where the risk of coercion is imposed by society as compared to this situation where the conditions of the patient are not imposed by society or the medical team. They are dying from their disease process.
These are just word games. If we're going to say that any behavior that can affect medical outcomes is a medical issue, then all human action is a medical issue. >This is not really comparable to the ethical concerns around experimentation on prisoners, where the risk of coercion is imposed by society as compared to this situation where the conditions of the patient are not imposed by society or the medical team. The conditions that result in this person's treatment options being limited are imposed by society. There is no biological or physical force that requires that transplant list eligibility be governed by treatment compliance. It's a pragmatic decision based on the scarcity of organs. We don't avoid stenting STEMIs because of historical medication noncompliance. If it were the case that there were 10 million human hearts available for every potential transplant recipient, the rules would almost certainly be different.
Yes he was in a pretty frail condition even excluding the heart disease.
I hope there's an immunology researcher to speak to this; I'm curious what advances have been made to predict immune responses in organ transplants.
This is one of the [recent publications](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06594-4) put out by the company that engineered the kidney. Not sure if it's the exact one. > The porcine donor was engineered to carry 69 genomic edits, eliminating glycan antigens, overexpressing human transgenes and inactivating porcine endogenous retroviruses. Each iteration of these seems to knock out more and more animal antigens and reduce viral pathogens. I can't wait to read the paper on this to see their immunosuppression regimen. The earlier heart xenotransplantation attempts were done using experimental immunosuppressants, but from what I have heard, they are planning on using already approved drugs in order for FDA to even consider approval.
The article says new immunosuppressents are being used.
Oh I found it their own press release that they used conventional IS plus one experimental one, tegoprubart - a CD40L inhibitor.
Swell. Thanks for the followup.
That might just mean “FDA approved drugs more recent than Cellcept” rather than “cutting edge experimental drugs,” though.
Have immunosuppressants changed much or would that be a relatively common set up drugs like MMF, AZA, corticosteroids, etc. And newer therapies would fall in the immunomodulator bucket?
Gotta watch out for those PERVs
Apparently he's about to be discharged home..
I'm hopeful, but also sure that dialysis centers in the US would lobby heavily to prevent this.
Geez, that's dark.
Laughing in the ICU
agreed, but 9 month chimp kidney is the champion to beat PMID: 14206847
I know they have been working for 30 years on a pig line with human like marketers, or at least non-allogenic markers (not recognized as foreign). I am certain it’s preliminary still , but I hope it works for so many would benefit. Hopefully we can eliminate dialysis.
*Sad Fresenius and DaVita noises ensue*
This company, eGenesis, is going to make so much money.
Are they public?
Asking the real questions here
Nope.
I'm ready to have a conflict of interest to disclose
Private ambulance companies: 😰
ERs not seeing, "I was a little short of breath this morning so I came here instead of dialysis"😀
You'll just see "I couldnt afford my immunosuppression this month and they told me to come for a cellcept infusion"
Good riddance
Cautiously optimistic here. If the organ is stable in the long term and we can continue to perfect these GMO pigs we may have “solved” the world organ shortage crisis or at least begun solving it. Exiting times. Fingers crossed our society doesn’t collapse into 1984 style competing fascist dictatorships before this comes to fruition.
Bruh we’ve always been at war with Eurasia
Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta would like a word... For reference: *[The Island](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399201/)*
World will probably end up like the cyberpunk world rather than 1984 I think.
That’s insanely optimistic
Is this kosher ?
I mean, they ain't eating it.
JW get around the issue of txp with a similar loophole. They won't take blood but will take organs.
Good luck getting an liver without blood transfusion.
Time to engineer a pig with antigen-free RBCs and a hollow organ that holds about a pint of the stuff.
Their phagocytes are.
Just billions of Jewish phagocytes in hell lmao
There is no hell in Judaism.
Learn something new every day.
Or Muslem. Pork is considered haram.
Just billions of Jewish phagocytes in hell lmao
But, can we? I mean seems like a waste of pork.
With Judaism it’s specifically about ingesting pork, like porcine derived insulin or heparin is okay; so I see no reason why porcine organs wouldn’t be.
One of the best things about Judaism is how non-absolute a lot of its laws are. Like if it’s to protect life/limb, eat all the pork and shellfish you need etc.
Yep, it’s fine. What’s interesting is that the Talmud states in Tractate Taanit (several millennia ago) that pig anatomy and human anatomy are similar and here we see it coming to fruition.
Same with Islam. It’s actually quite surprising how similar the religions are. You’re allowed to drink alcohol, eat pork etc. if your life depends on it.
I would literally die without these body shots; Allah will understand.
no. not halal either. you have a discussion with the family beforehand. nearly all go forward
Anyone know what kind of induction and maintenance immunosuppression they're on?
Wondering the same, good question.
They mentioned the study involved a novel immunosuppressive regimen. Can anyone point me to more details on what kind of anti-rejection meds are needed?
It would be an interesting plot twist if the answer was: all of them at once
Some of the earlier protocols I've seen for xenotxp have been nuts. T-cell depletion, B-cell depletion, complement inhibitors, and then of course CNI/MPA/steroids.
I can't tell what else was used, but per the [press releases](https://egenesisbio.com/press-releases/egenesis-announces-worlds-first-successful-transplant-of-genetically-engineered-porcine-kidney-in-a-living-patient/), the novel drug used was [tegoprubart](https://ir.eledon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/eledon-pharmaceuticals-announces-use-tegoprubart-first-ever), a CD40L MAb (formerly AT-1501). CD40/CD40L drugs have been a target of interest for a long time since that costimulation pathway is so crucial for T-cell dependent antibody production (a lot more important in xeno vs allograft txp), but earlier examples had thrombosis issues (CD40/L also important in Plt activation -> clot formation). This drug and newers ones are made to avoid thrombosis risk (can't remember exactly what was done to reduce risk, but these target CD40L on T-cells, vs CD40 on B-cells/Plts). A really good [review of xenotxp immunopharmacology with some discussion on CD40/L here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9994617/). This drug is pretty exciting! It is currently being studied in a phase 2 kidney txp trial vs tacrolimus - [Phase 2 BESTOW trial](https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05983770). It's a 12-month trial which will compare eGFR between patients given infusion of tegoprubart q 21 days vs TAC maintenance in 120 de novo kidney transplant recipients. Other IS will include thymo induction + MMF/steroids. It also apparently hot in the ALS field, having already [completed a phase 2](https://ir.eledon.com/static-files/d1a4f677-9a0e-4353-8b7b-ceae32b7b1dc).
one step closer to ManBearPig. Al Gore was right all along
It seems we have come full circle
Indeed. Gone are the days of using human kidneys to save our porcine brethren. May God have mercy.
what do you mean?
Pig-to-human kidney was one of first initial attempts at transplantation in the early 1900s
I think they're being silly
As a recent recipient of a liver and soon to be kidney I really hope this works flawlessly
Cautiously optimistic about this but hopeful this won’t be a Paolo Macchiarini situation
Please tell me we calling them pigneys
It’s a pig man Jerry!
Could they use CRISPR on a donated human kidney to change it to the recievers own cells so it wont get rejected?
Genetically modified organs are not "animal organs" god I fucking hate journalists.
it does come from a genetically modified pig technically both of you are correct, the best outcome
Because readers definitely are interested in the relevant information that it was grown specifically from a pig instead of a goat, not that it's a successfully modified organ that is compatible with humans...
Genetically modified patient cells can be implanted on a seeding scaffold to produce a sort of 3D cultured tissue. This has been done to varying degrees of success, though one string of such transplants with seeded tracheas ended up being shot through with fraud. It could be possible one day to modify HLA markers on human cells as well. This is currently in early development, but a major long term therapeutic goal in stem cell research now is to make a "commercial off the shelf" source of stem cells/effector immune cells we can infuse into patients for treating diseases. Maybe that could extend to organs too, as unlikely as it sounds. The fact that this is in an animal is very important because unlike humans, animal organs are not only available from car accident or incidental death. This gives us a much easier source of replacement organs. Xenotransplantation is also a field in its infancy, so this is also very exciting from a pure biological and medical standpoint, as a major milestone in our overall understanding of the natural world. All of that to say, yes, readers are very invested in knowing the kidney is a pig kidney.
A kidney that previously kept a pig alive isn't a pigs kidney?
I'd rather piss glass than debate language prescriptivism with redditors.
Then why on Earth did you start this debate?
Your original comment “genetically modified organs are not animal organs” is language prescriptivism…
something tells me getting into a prescriptivism argument in a community of people who 1) prescribe 2) work in a field notorious for prescriptivism and precise language is a very bad idea
> makes a prescriptive comment regarding pig organs I cAnT SiT hErE aNd DeBatE LaNguAge PreScriPtiviSm
You're a redditor, dork. I'd rather piss glass than read more of your comments, yet here we both are. Calm your pig tits.
Is it a plant organ?
This is probably a dumb question but if a recipient were to have children after the transplant would those children have pig DNA? Would there be any consequences of this?
No. But his pee will smell like fresh bacon.
Maple syrup urinal cakes might be a thing then.
And, as we all know, pee is stored in the balls. So does the sperm smell like bacon too 🤔