On Wednesday, NYU Langone Health announced that doctors successfully transplanted a kidney from a pig into a patient who was declared brain dead. Doctors also said it could lead to more animal-human transplants in the future, ABC News reported.
The surgeons transplanted a genetically engineered pig kidney that continues to function well after 32 days in a man declared dead by neurologic criteria and maintained with a beating heart on ventilator support, NYU Langone Health said in a release.
The procedure was performed on July 14, 2023, led by Robert Montgomery, a professor and chair of the Department of Surgery at NYU Langone Health and director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute. Mr Montgomery said that the kidney has functioned properly for a month and that its function will be monitored for a total of two months.
"The one-month kidney biopsies and kidney tests show no evidence of rejection and normal renal function," Dr Montgomery said during a press conference. "The pig kidney appears to replace all of the important tasks that the human kidney manages."
During the press conference, Dr Adam Griesemer, a transplant surgeon at NYU Langone Health, explained that the thymus was also transplanted, embedded beneath the kidney's outer layer, because it has been shown to help protect the transplanted kidney from being attacked by the human immune system, ABC News reported.
"The thymus gland is the tissue in our neck and chest where our immune system matures and where it learns to recognize the proteins in our body and learns to reject proteins that are not part of our own body," Dr Griesemer explained. "So, transplanting the thymus from the pig allows new developing cells in the recipient's body to learn to recognize the pig antigens as their own, and it can potentially lead to a decreased immune response and decreased risk of rejection."
The transplant was done on 57-year-old Maurice Miller. His sister, Mary Miller-Duff, said that her brother would be proud to be a part of it.
"Mo, as I like to call him, was a kind, giving brother who loved life, and always lent a helping hand," Miller-Duff said at the press conference. "It is only fitting that in his final act, he will be helping so many in need through this innovative medical advancement."
