Washington (AP) – In this episode of history behind AP history, we hear Lauran Neergaard and Shelby…
Washington (AP) – In this episode of history behind the history AP, we hear Lauran Neergaard and Shelby Lum, who followed the trip of Animal transplantation in Humanor xenotransplants, in recent years. This includes sharing The history of the proceduremore people who received these organs And what risks can pose.
Shelby Lum, Associated Press: There are more than 100,000 people on the transplantation list, and most of these people expect a kidney. Thousands of people will die on the list before being eligible to get one. And many experts say that there will never be enough human donors.
Haya Panjwani, Associated Press: This is why scientists turn to a procedure known as Xenotransplantation.
Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press: a word of fantasy to say animal to the transplantation of human organs.
Panjwani: I'm Haya Panjwani. In this episode of history behind AP history, we hear Lauren Neergaard and Shelby Lum, who have followed the trip of the Xenotransplants in recent years. Lauren says that xenotransplantation has been tried for many years, without success.
Neergaard: There were a number of chimpanzee transplants in the 1960s. The most famous of them was probably the baby Faye in 1984, who lived for 21 days with the heart of a baboon. They did not work because at the time, doctors and scientists did not really understand how you could overcome the challenge of the immune system. The human immune system immediately recognizes these animal organs and animal tissues as foreigners and attacks.
So, if you have just taken a pig organ, of any old pork organ and glued it in a person on the operating table, it would literally become black under the surgeon's eyes. It is at what speed would the immune system attack it. Now what's going on is that we have companies that are genetic editing pigs. They modify the genes in pigs so that they are born missing from some of these molecules which say “attack me” to the human immune system and with additional human genes to make them more compatible with people.
They are already used in, well, we have used them for food, but they are also already used in human medicine in various ways. We obtain heart valves from pigs. We get pig's skin transplants, and their organs are very compatible with human organs in anatomy. They look like human organs, they work like human organs, blood vessels are in the right place that you can attach them correctly.
Panjwani: Shelby says they were able to meet some of the pigs used in these procedures.
Lum: And these pigs are raised specifically to be more compatible for human size, but they look like normal pigs. They look exactly like what you think of a normal pig to look like. Porks in the search farm are used for some of the first xenotransplantation experiences. They are therefore for some deceased studies where these organs are tested in dead brain donors, as well as some of the first cases of compassion care.
Neergaard: We have really started to see the first examples of organs from these pigs edicts of genes tested in dead brain donors. And so the kidneys of the pigs were placed in them to see what happened. And that's where Shelby was able to do something really cool.
Lum: I was fortunate to be in the operating room for this really experimental surgery to test the pork kidney in this dead brain donor whose name is MOE. Moe's family had graciously decided to give this research to see if it could work. To do this, we worked with the university for months, which included sending my vaccination story. He included tests. I had to attract blood analyzes to make sure I didn't bring anything to this operating room.
So, once you are in the operating room, it is quite similar to an ordinary renal transplant operation. You have the surgeon who begins surgery, then the surgeons go to the farm and they provide the pork kidney. And so they return to Nyu where surgery is underway. And in this surgery, they put the pork kidney in the donor. And it becomes pink immediately, which is the big sign for a kidney transplant. This is what you want to see, this is this moment when this kidney becomes pink. And it was this really incredible moment when the surgeons attached the kidney, you all hear chatting, and you hear them say, it's pink.
Neergaard: What was really incredible was the speed with which it went from bodies who died in living people.
Panjwani: In January 2022, a man by the name of David Bennett became the first person to receive a co -leaf transplant.
Neergaard: And Dr. Bartley Griffith, who was the surgeon involved here, told us how nervous he was about the brocher, then how this patient replied with humor. He said, you know, what do you think I'm going to ank? This first operation, this first transplant, only lasted two months.
Panjwani: The second attempted pork co -porch with a navy veteran named Lawrence Rautte also only lasted less than two months.
Neergaard: Then the kidneys started.
Panjwani: A man by the name of Rick Slayman and a woman named Lisa Pisano have both received pork edicts from genes.
Neergaard: these two patients also died. It is therefore a point where doctors are like: “Whoa, we are not as successful as we wanted”. And they started looking for patients who were not as seriously ill as these first four people.
A woman from Alabama named Towana Looney lived the longest with a pig kidney published by the genes. She had it for 130 days before her doctors in Nyu remove it earlier this month. Looney had succeeded very well. She had told us that she felt like Superwoman. But then, in early April, his body began to reject the organ. She is awarded surgery and is back home on dialysis, disappointed, of course. But this record time to live with the pork kidney provided precious information to scientists.
So what is the next step? A man from the New Hampshire received a pork kidney at the Masse General Hospital in January. Like Looney, he was not as sick as some of the previous recipients when he was transplanted, and so far, all good. Chinese researchers have also recently announced a pork kidney transplant there, which is growing.
Lum: Looney published a statement saying that the result was not what someone had hoped, but she hopes that it can inspire others in this trip because xenotransplantation is more studied. And there are people who are very interested in obtaining a xenotransplantation.
Panjwani: With any new scientific procedure, there are risks.
Neergaard: So, one of the risks, of course, is that it will fail. The doctors will all say that these first four were not failures because of what they learned from each of these patients. They will tell you that these are names that will fall into medical history because they have learned from each of them. The other side of risk, however, is the fact that we use animal organs in people. And that has just worried about whether there would be a possible transmission of animal viruses to people. One of the ethical challenges is whether these people fully consent to experience. Because so far, they have been people who have really been out of other options. There are also ethical problems on how animals are treated, how we use animals for the good of humans. And this is something that supporters believe that we are helped by the fact that we use pigs, which are also used for food.
Lum: Lauren and I spoke with a few people who expressed their interest in getting one. Because for so many people living under dialysis, being on the chair several times a week, it is simply not the best quality of life. They do not feel well, they are unable to do the things they want, and so there are people who are really interested in being one of these first studies.
Neergaard: I think the main theme we have heard of all the patients we have managed to talk to so far, or their families, or even in the case of MOE, the man whose body has been used for this early experience which lasted two months, there is this common theme that will happen to them, they will help others. He's anyone who shelby and I spoke said. The Food and Drug Administration gave United Therapeutics the authorization to do a clinical trial using pork kidneys created by their revivacor subsidiary integrated on a small number of participants. They will perform surgeries on the first patients, will see how it goes, they are there for a few months, then they will increase to larger numbers.
Panjwani: This is the story behind the history AP. To find out more about AP health coverage, visit Apnews.com.
Copyright © 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material cannot be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
