Humanized Kidneys Grown in Pig Embryos for First Time Ever
H.G. Wells introduced much of the world to scientifically engineered human-animal hybrids in his novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. While the procedure is portrayed as a gruesome aberration of nature carried out by a sinister mad scientist, mixing the parts and cells of species could actually help address some of the most pressing medical issues of our time, including the organ donation shortage.
In a study published Thursday in the journal Cell Press, Chinese researchers have successfully grown humanized kidneys in living pigs—marking a major milestone in the world of xenotransplantation, the transplanting of organs from one species to another. This is the first time a humanized organ has grown in a non-human animal, and the breakthrough lays the groundwork for potentially creating other hybrid species organs as well.
“Rat organs have been produced in mice, and mouse organs have been produced in rats, but previous attempts to grow human organs in pigs have not succeeded,” senior author Liangxue Lai, a stem cell biologist at the Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in a statement. “Our approach improves the integration of human cells into recipient tissues and allows us to grow human organs in pigs.”