Inside the rise of animal-to-human transplants as pig kidney is given to brain-dead man and ex-convict gets hog heart
HERE’S a look inside the rise of animal-to-human transplants as a pig kidney was given to a brain-dead man and an ex-convict received a hog heart. Back in September 2021, Dr. Jayme Locke and his surgical team operated sewed the first pig kidney into a 57-year-old brain-dead man. For the first time in history, James […]
HERE’S a look inside the rise of animal-to-human transplants as a pig kidney was given to a brain-dead man and an ex-convict received a hog heart.
Back in September 2021, Dr. Jayme Locke and his surgical team operated sewed the first pig kidney into a 57-year-old brain-dead man.
For the first time in history, James Parsons had received kidneys, from a genetically modified pig, implanted into his abdomen.
The Alabama dad and registered organ donor was declared brain-dead after a dirt bike accident, NBC News reports.
The successful transplant surgery was announced by University of Alabama at Birmingham surgeons on Thursday.
The New York Times shared the news after the surgery was reported in The American Journal of Transplantation.
Pig kidneys were placed into Parsons’ abdomen, where they began working and making urine after 23minutes, and for three days, the surgeons explained.
Following the surgery, which removed Parsons’ kidneys, the pig organs were not rejected from his body.
Most read in The Sun
Lead surgeon Locke said: “Our goal is not to have a one-off, but to advance the field to help our patients.
“What a wonderful day it will be when I can walk into clinic and know I have a kidney for everyone waiting to see me.”
The doctor, who describes kidney failure as “refractory, severe and impactful” hopes to offer pig transplants can in five years.
PIG HEART
Meanwhile, NHS surgeons could be performing pig heart transplants in the next decade, an expert has said.
The declaration followed a medical breakthrough where a 57-year-old ex-convict in the US had a pig heart transplanted into his body.
The first human patient to receive a pig heart transplant called the one-of-a-kind medical procedure a “shot in the dark” that could save his life.
A pig heart was transplanted into David Bennett in January 2022 at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland.
Bennett’s surgery comes more than 30 years after he was convicted of stabbing of Edward Shumaker in 1988, the patient’s sister Leslie Shumaker Downey told BBC’s Today show.
The experimental surgery — which took seven hours to complete — led doctors at the medical center to confirm the procedure showed that a heart from a genetically modified animal can work in the human body without being rejected immediately.
Bennett said in a statement, obtained by The Associated Press a day before the surgery: “It was either die or do this transplant.
“I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice.”
His son David Bennett Jr. told the news outlet his dad was ineligible for a human heart transplant and this was his only option for a chance at living — despite it not being guaranteed to help.
HOPE FOR MORE PIG ORGAN TRANSPLANTS
Bennett’s surgery, as well as using other pig organs in the human body, is now “on the straight line” rather than “round the corner” – and experts are hopeful that it will become mainstream within a decade.
Prof Gabriel Oniscu, ESOT President-Elect of the European Society of Organ Transplantation, told the Telegraph: “The unwritten joke in the field of transplantation was that xenotransplantation has always been around the corner, but it has remained around the corner.
“Now I think it is not around the corner anymore, it’s on the straight line.
“In the past, we’ve always said it will be five to 10 years [until transplantation is a reality as a treatment], but it’s never been the case.
“I think now we are certainly looking within this timespan. I’m hopeful that it will happen.”
Pig organ transplants could be mainstream in the next decade – if proven to be safe and effective, the professor said.
But the expert doubted that the surgery would be standard on the NHS in the next five years.
And although human-animal hybrids could be used to grow life-saving organs and replacement limbs — some fear it may be scientists “playing God.”
In the past scientists have used the techniques to splice human and monkey embryos together, transplant fetal organs into rats, and even grow human ears on mice.
The idea of the strange experiments tests is for human-ready organs to be grown on mutant animals in lab conditions – helping to fill the transplant void left by organ shortages.
So-called “chimera” embryos and the use of animal parts, known as xenotransplants, have been very controversial – with some feeling that scientists have crossed the line.
Medical Daily asked in 2016 if the research was a “Medical Miracle or Playing God?”.
And in some countries the research is illegal, with experiments on human chimeras only being allowed in the US as recently as 2016.
Some accuse scientists of carrying out “Frankenstein” experiments, and the tests have not gone over well with many religious groups.
We pay for your stories!
Do you have a story for The US Sun team?
Email us at exclusive@the-sun.com or call 212 416 4552.
Like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheSunUS and follow us from our main Twitter account at @TheSunUS