Surgeons externally connected a pig liver to a brain-dead human body and watched it successfully filter blood, a step toward testing the technique in patients with liver failure.
The University of Pennsylvania announced the novel experiment on Thursday, a different twist on organ transplants from animals to humans.
In this case, the pig liver was used outside the donated body, not inside, a way to create a “bridge” to support failing livers by doing the job of cleaning the organ’s blood externally, much like dialysis for failing kidneys.
Transplants from animals to humans, called xenotransplants, have failed for decades because people’s immune systems rejected the foreign tissue.
Now scientists are trying again with pigs whose organs have been genetically modified to look more like humans.
In recent years, kidneys from genetically modified pigs have been temporarily transplanted into brain-dead donors to see how well they work, and two men received heart transplants from pigs, although both died within months.
A genetically modified pig liver is harvested in Massachusetts for transport to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in December 2023. AP
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering allowing a small number of Americans in need of a new organ to volunteer for rigorous studies of pig hearts or kidneys.
Some researchers are also looking to use pig livers.
A liver has different complexities than the kidneys and heart: it filters blood, removes waste, and produces substances necessary for other bodily functions.
Kidneys from genetically modified pigs have been temporarily transplanted into brain-dead donors to see how well they work. agnor brand – stock.adobe.com
About 10,000 people are currently on the U.S. waiting list for a liver transplant.
In the Penn experiment, researchers connected a liver from a pig (one genetically modified by eGenesis) to a device made by OrganOx that typically helps preserve donated human livers before transplant.
The family of the deceased, whose organs were not suitable for donation, offered the body for research.
The US Food and Drug Administration will make a decision whether to allow a small number of Americans in need of an organ to volunteer for studies of pig hearts or kidneys. PIC4U – stock.adobe.com
The machines kept the body’s blood circulating.
The experiment, conducted last month, filtered blood through the pig liver device for 72 hours.
In a statement, the Penn team reported that the donor’s body remained stable and the pig’s liver showed no signs of damage.
There is a lot of work to develop machines similar to liver dialysis, and experiments with pig livers were attempted years ago, before today’s more advanced genetic techniques, said Dr. Parsia Vagefi of UT Southwestern Medical Center, who does not participated in the new experiment, but closely follows research on xenotransplantations.
“I applaud them for pushing this,” Vagefi said, calling this combined pig and device approach an intriguing step in efforts toward better liver failure care.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn