Success: Pig Kidney works in human for 1st time

US Medical team has successfully attached pig kidney in human. The surgery, carried out on September 25, involved a genetically modified donor animal and a brain dead patient on a ventilator whose family had given permission for the two-day experiment, for the sake of advancing science.

How Pig Kidney in Human is a success?

• According to official US data, there are nearly 107,000 Americans awaiting an organ -- 90,000 of whom need a kidney. Seventeen Americans die each day while waiting for an organ.
• If experimented person with pig kidney live a long life, then this will be a big success. It will help those who need kidney transplant.
• Earlier research has shown that kidneys from pigs are viable in nonhuman primates for up to a year, but this was the first time it had been attempted with a human patient.
• The editing was performed by biotech firm Revivicor, a subsidiary of United Therapeutics.
• The donor pig belonged to a herd that had undergone a genetic editing procedure to knock out a gene that produces a particular sugar, which would otherwise have triggered a strong immune response and led to organ rejection.
• Pigs make the ideal donors because of their size, their rapid growth and large litters, and the fact they are already raised as a food source, said Montgomery.
• Today, pig heart valves are widely used in humans, and pig skin is grafted on human burn victims.

"This news is a significant scientific achievement in the xenotransplantation field," Hynek Mergental, a surgeon at the University of Birmingham in Britain said in a statement.

If confirmed, "it would be a major step forward in the organ transplant field that might solve the critical shortage of donor organs.

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