文/Derek Saul
Summary of events
Doctors at NYU Langone Health transplanted genetically modified pig hearts into two brain-dead patients, researchers announced on Tuesday. This is a welcome step forward in the medical field, just months after the first-ever successful transplantation of a pig heart into a living person.
On July 6, the team at NYU Langone Health prepared for transplant surgery. Image Source: JOE CARROTTA, NYU LANGONE HEALTH
Key Facts
The two transplant surgeries were performed on June 16 and July 6 respectively, and the transplanted hearts showed normal heart function for several days after the operation.
Nader Moazami, chief of cardiac transplant surgery at NYU Langone Transplant Institute, who oversees the surgeries, said in a statement that the institute hopes to continue advancing clinical trials using these transplanted organs in the future.
Revivicor, a subsidiary of biotech giant United Therapeutics Corporation, funded the research.
Key Background
In recent years, genetically modified pig organs have become a subject of increasing concern and research in the medical community due to organ shortages. Last September, a research team at NYU Langone Health and the University of Alabama at Birmingham transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a brain-dead human for the first time. In January this year, 57-year-old David Bennett, a Maryland man, became the first living person in the world to receive a genetically modified pig heart, although he died in March this year. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, which performed the transplant, determined that Bennett died of heart failure caused by "a complex set of factors," not just rejection of the new organ.
Important remarks
Robert Montgomery, director of NYU Langone's Transplant Institute, said in a statement that the study's "larger purpose is to address the organ shortage and provide more than 100,000 people across the United States who are waiting for this life-saving gift." Thousands of people offer an alternative.”
