The genetically modified organ was linked to the patient in a brain dead state. The experiment could pave the way for xenografts and solve the problem of organ scarcity
Not just a step, but it looks more like a leap forward on the path of transplants: for the first time in the United States, at New York University Langone in New York, a team of surgeons, led by Robert Montgomery, linked a genetically modified pig kidney to a patient with severe kidney dysfunction and kept alive with a ventilator. After the surgery, the kidney began to function normally producing urine and creatinine, without showing signs of rejection. Doctors monitored kidney function for 54 hours before pulling the plug on the woman, who was already brain dead. The kidney was not actually implanted, but it worked outside the body and connected to the blood vessels.
What does genetically modified mean
Genetically modified means that this pig kidney, thanks to the new technique of cutting and sewing of DNA, called in technical terms Crispr, has been deprived of those genes, typical of the pig (that is, of a species different from ours) that could trigger, in the patient recipient, a rejection. Why is this result important? Because the problem is always the same: the shortage of donor organs to transplant. And not just kidney. So the research, for years, has been going through two ways, to find a solution. The first, in fact, is that of xenotransplants (that is, from animals other than humans) which has a long history, since the first chimpanzee kidney transfers, in the 1960s, to humans, without success. Then with the sensational case of Baby Faye, the girl with a severe heart malformation who in 1983 had received a baboon’s heart, but had not survived.
The shortage of organs
Today the idea of using pig organs (the animal closest to man due to the characteristics of its immune system: pig heart valves have already been implanted in humans) has regained altitude, thanks also to the new possibilities of genetic manipulation. The other way is the construction of artificial organs (always biological, not mechanical). For both of these paths, the results of the research are gradually reported, but the hope that new treatments, not only experimental ones, will be offered to those who do not have any today. And to solve the ethical problems that these new therapies are posing.
October 21, 2021 (change October 21, 2021 | 10:48)
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