Our organs, which are worn out by nature, can bring diseases and death at advanced levels. But even donations made today cannot meet the demand for organ transplants. For this reason, humanity has started to search for ways that can eliminate the need for organ transplantation and extend life in the future.
Pig organ transplantation, which is the most suitable option of these ways in terms of compatibility with our body, started in 2021. In October 2021, a pig kidney and a pig heart were transplanted into a human for the first time in history, and today, there is another big news on this subject.
A first was achieved in pig kidney transplantation:
A team of surgeons led by Jayme Locke of the University of Alabama announced that for the first time in history, a pig kidney transplanted into a human in a genetically modified form has succeeded in performing “vital kidney function.” The function in question was “creatinine clearance”. In other words, the function of the kidneys to clear creatinine, the organic waste produced by muscle metabolism.
No such results have been obtained in animal-to-human kidney transplants to date:
Successful transplant was not done on a living individual. The genetically modified pig kidney was transplanted into an unnamed male individual who died as a result of the accident at the age of 52, who voluntarily donated his body.
The kidney continued to perform all functions until the termination of life support, which was offered to the individual’s body and continued to keep his organs alive. This process took exactly 7 days.
With this success, the transplant team will try to observe the residual kidney for 30 days on an individual whose body is donated to research if permission is obtained from his family and before his death.
All the details of the latest work were shared on the JAMA Network.
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