THE WORLD’S first gene-edited pig kidney has breathed new life into a man in an unprecedented medical breakthrough.
The pioneer procedure meant good news to terminal patient Richard Slayman, 62, who had an earlier kidney transplant in 2018 that began failing last year.
The four-hour surgery took place on Saturday at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), in Boston.
Because it was the first of its kind, the transplant was carried out under the Expanded Access Protocol – commonly dubbed “compassionate use” – which is a means of access to experimental treatments.
It is only granted to a patients with serious life-threatening conditions when no other treatment options exist.
A hospital statement said Mr Slayman is making a stable recovery and walking, and is expected to be discharged soon.
Living with diabetes and high blood pressure, he had been a regular hospital patient for more than a decade before getting the genetically engineered pig kidney.
Mr Slayman was on dialysis for years before receiving a human kidney transplant in 2018, but it failed within five years.
Dr. Winfred Williams, associate chief of the nephrology division at MGH, revealed that Mr Slayman’s blood vessels were clotting and failing when he resumed dialysis last year.
He told The New York Times: “He would have had to wait five to six years for a human kidney. He would not have been able to survive it.”
Joren C. Madsen, Director of the MGH Transplant Center, said Mr Slayman was “the real hero”.
“[The surgery] would not have been possible without his courage and willingness to embark on a journey into uncharted medical history.
“Mr. Slayman becomes a beacon of hope for countless individuals suffering from end-stage renal disease and opens a new frontier in organ transplantation.
“I have been a Mass General Transplant Center patient for 11 years and have the highest level of trust in the doctors, nurses, and clinical staff who have cared for me,” said Richard Slayman, thanking everyone at MGH.
“When my transplanted kidney began failing in 2023, I again trusted my care team at MGH to meet my goals of not just improving my quality of life but extending it.
“I saw it [pig kidney transplant] not only as a way to help me, but a way to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to live.”
Mass General confirmed that the kidney was donated by eGenesis of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The pig donor’s genes had been altered with CRISPR-Cas9 technology, a powerful tool for editing genomes that allows researchers to easily alter DNA sequences and modify gene function.
It has many potential applications, including correcting genetic defects, treating and preventing the spread of diseases, and improving the growth and resilience of crops.
This enabled scientists to replace dangerous pig genes with those that are more compatible with humans.
Mr. Slayman becomes a beacon of hope for countless individuals suffering from end-stage renal disease and opens a new frontier in organ transplantation
Joren C. Madsen
Researchers also “inactivated porcine endogenous retroviruses in the pig donor to eliminate any risk of infection in humans.”
Doctors in the operating room burst into applause as the animal kidney began functioning almost immediately, said transplant surgeon Tatsuo Kawai.
He said: “These results led us to think about proceeding in ways with transplant candidates who are running out of other options.”
Leonardo Riella, MGH’s medical director of kidney transplantation, said that while transplants are expensive, they often produce better results than dialysis for those in the late stages of kidney disease.
“Clearly transplant is a much better in potentially reducing cost in comparison to dialysis, but without organs we cannot do it,” he said.
The breakthrough could offer hope for new ways to supply organs to patients who are often stuck on transplant lists for years.
Kidney failure affects around 750,000 individuals in the United States each year, with an estimated two million more globally, stats from the University of California San Francisco reveal.
More than 100,000 Americans are on the waiting list for kidney transplants, and with end-stage renal disease anticipated to rise by 2030, the revelation comes as a big relief.
In China, a 50-year-old brain-dead man became the first to receive a genetically-engineered pig liver, which was retained in his body for ten days.
Surgeons said the organ’s colour and texture seemed “normal” upon extraction, and it was even secreting bile, a fluid that aids digestion.
Xenotransplantation, the transfer of organs or tissues between different species, has yielded notable breakthroughs in medical science.
From heart and kidney transplants to skin and corneal grafts, these procedures have been performed globally, offering promising solutions for organ shortages.
Here are a few examples:
