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Two US surgical teams transplant functional pig kidneys into humans in xenotransplantation success
Nature Medicine explores the latest translation and clinical research news, with two separate groups announcing that genetically modified pig kidneys are functional in brain-dead human hosts.
Two surgical teams announced successful experimental transplantation of transgenic pig kidneys into brain-dead human recipients in August 2023. Both groups, one at New York University (NYU) Langone Health (unpublished at the time of this writing) and the other at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) (published in JAMA Surgery), reported that the porcine organs evaded immunological rejection and performed their normal physiological functions. At UAB, the experimental procedure was interrupted for analysis after 1 week, but the NYU announcement was made at the 1-month mark and the team intends to press forward, aiming for 2 months. The surgeons at NYU and UAB both relied on the same source of pigs: Virginia-based Revivicor — a company that produces mutant pigs lacking a prominent immune target, galactose α-1-3-galactose (α-gal) sugars, on their cell surfaces.