mollwollfumble said:
Arts said:
Spiny Norman said:
Well okay it’s a misleading title.
In a historic procedure surgeons in the US have, for the first time, transplanted a genetically modified pig heart into a living human. The patient is currently still alive, has not rejected the pig organ and is being carefully monitored at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
The extraordinary achievement is the culmination of decades of work from scientists around the world. Perhaps the most significant recent steps leading up to this landmark moment were advances in gene editing allowing for the development of pig organs that are not rejected by a human immune system.
The genetically modified pig heart used in the transplant was supplied by regenerative medicine company Revivicor and came from a pig that had been engineered with around 10 particular genetic modifications, all focused on reducing the chances of rejection from a human immune system.
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I feel like we’ve tried something similar before
Yes. IIRC, genetically modified pigs have been used for tussue transplants into humans before, in order to overcome the rejection problem.
But I haven’t heard of heats being transplated this way … or have I?
From wikipedia,
Xenotransplantation is the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another. Such cells, tissues or organs are called xenografts or xenotransplants.
Not generally used. There have been successes and failures with chimp and babboon organs before.
“In September 2021 the first, genetically engineered, pig kidney donation from a pig to a brain-dead human was performed, with no sign of immediate rejection. In 2022, doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center performed a heart transplant from a genetically modified pig to a terminally ill patient”.