Robert Montgomery will undergo his fifth xenotransplant on July 14, 2023 at New York University School of Medicine Langone Health. /European Press.
After 61 days of observation, doctors at Langone Health at New York University School of Medicine this month completed the longest recorded case of a genetically engineered pig kidney functioning in a human body. This brings new hope for the future. About transplant.
The surgery, known as a xenotransplant, in which an animal’s organs are transplanted into a human, was performed on July 14, 2023, and was led by Robert Montgomery, the H. Leon Pachter Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery and hospital director. New York University Langone Transplant Institute.
The organ was transplanted into a 58-year-old man who was connected to a ventilator with the consent of his family after he was declared dead by neurological criteria before the xenotransplantation and was harvested on September 13, 2023. Ta.
“Through these past two months of close observation and analysis, we have learned a lot, and there is great reason to be hopeful about the future,” Dr. Montgomery said. “None of this would have been possible without the incredible support we received from the families of our deceased recipients. Thanks to them, we are excited about xenotransplantation as a hopeful solution to the national organ shortage.” “We were able to obtain an important vision for this,” he said. I got it.
The study was terminated after the scheduled end date, and in accordance with the deceased’s wishes, the deceased was taken off the ventilator and the body returned to the family.
The surgery was the fifth xenotransplant performed by the Transplant Institute since Dr. Montgomery performed the first genetically engineered pig kidney transplant into a human on September 25, 2021.
This was followed by a second similar surgery on November 22, 2021. Surgeons at NYU Langone then performed two genetically engineered pig heart transplants in the summer of 2022.
The kidneys used in this procedure were obtained from an animal known as the GalSafe pig, an animal designed by Revivocor Inc., a subsidiary of United Therapeutics Corporation. In December 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recognized GalSafe pork as a potential source for human treatment and as a food source for people with alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to meat caused by tick bites. Approved as a source.
“Deletion” of the only gene encoding a biomolecule known as alpha-gal, which has been shown to be responsible for rapid antibody-mediated rejection of pig organs by humans, resulted in immediate rejection in pigs. Averted. . They also fused the pig’s thymus gland, which is responsible for educating the immune system, with the pig’s kidney to prevent further delays in the immune response.
Previous genetically engineered pig organ transplants have incorporated up to 10 genetic modifications, but this latest study demonstrates that kidneys from single-gene knockout pigs can function optimally after two months.
Tissue collected during the study showed some new cellular changes that surgeons had never observed before, indicating a mild rejection process, and in order to completely reverse it, immunosuppression is required. It was necessary to strengthen the agent.
The research team will now study the data collected over the past two months and perform additional tests to determine cellular and molecular changes to examine these organs in future studies and, one day, in living humans. The plan is to let doctors know how to treat them.
More than 103,000 people are on transplant waiting lists in the United States, and about 88,000 of them are waiting to receive a kidney, according to recent data from the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network. Approximately 26,000 people will receive a kidney transplant in 2022. Meanwhile, approximately 808,000 people in the United States have end-stage kidney disease.
“To create an unlimited and sustainable organ supply, we need to know how to manage pig organs transplanted into humans,” Dr. Montgomery said. “Testing them in deceased people allows us to optimize the choice of immunosuppressive therapies and gene editing without putting living patients at risk,” he added.
Dr. Montgomery hopes to publish more detailed results in the coming months as he continues other studies on deceased xenotransplants to make future clinical trials safer.
Source: Diario.Elmundo
