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Three days after the transplant, the patient, who was not eligible for a conventional transplant, is doing well.
A world first that arouses hope. In a statement released on January 10, 2022, the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the United States announced that doctors had successfully transplanted the heart of a genetically modified pig into a human.
An experimental surgery
The patient’s name is David Bennett. A 57-year-old man with end-stage heart disease deemed ineligible for traditional transplant by multiple transplant centers. The operation was carried out on January 7, with success. “This transplant was able to show for the first time that the heart of a genetically modified animal can function like a human heart without immediate rejection by the body”, can we read in the press release.
Three genes responsible for rapid rejection of pig organs by humans were removed from the donor animal, along with another gene to prevent excessive growth of its heart tissue. In parallel, six human genes responsible for the immune tolerance of the pig heart were inserted into the genome of the animal. This experimental surgery was the subject of an emergency authorization in the context of compassionate use by Food and Drug Administration (FDA; American equivalent of the drug safety agency in France), because it was the “only option available” to hope to save the patient.
A “major surgical advance”
“It was either death or this transplant. I want to live. I know it’s a big risk, but it’s my last option, said David Bennett a day before his operation. I look forward to being able to get out of bed once I recover.” For his part, doctor Bartley Griffith, who carried out the transplant, affirms that it is a “major surgical breakthrough that brings us one step closer to a solution to the organ shortage. There aren’t enough human hearts available to match the long list of potential recipients.“He and his team hope that this world first can become a new option in its own right for patients awaiting a transplant.
It is Revivicor which is at the origin of the genetic modification carried out on the donor pig. The American company had already supplied surgeons with a pig kidney that had been successfully transplanted into a brain-dead New York patient last October.
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