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Transplantation

Kidney xenotransplantation edges closer to the clinic

Nature Reviews Nephrology volume 20, pages 204–205 (2024)Cite this article

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The demand for kidney transplants is far from met by human donors — a problem that may be solved by the clinical translation of porcine kidney xenotransplantation. A new paper describes the development of genetically ‘humanized’ pigs, the kidneys of which kept nephrectomized cynomolgus macaques alive for up to 2 years.

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Fig. 1: Survival of nephrectomized cynomolgus macaques with genetically modified porcine kidney xenotransplants.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. M. Mohiuddin (Cardiac Xenotransplantation Program, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA) and J. Denner (Institute of Virology, Free University of Berlin, Germany) for critical review of the manuscript before submission. Our xenotransplantation studies are supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (CRC-TR 127) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF; Sinergia grant CRSII5_198577/1).

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  1. Gene Center and Center for Innovative Medical Models (CiMM), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Eckhard Wolf

  2. Walter-Brendel-Center for Experimental Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Bruno Reichart

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  1. Eckhard Wolf
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Correspondence to Eckhard Wolf.

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Competing interests

The authors are co-founders of XTransplant GmbH, Starnberg, Germany.

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Wolf, E., Reichart, B. Kidney xenotransplantation edges closer to the clinic. Nat Rev Nephrol 20, 204–205 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41581-023-00790-1

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