US surgeons complete fifth gene-edited pig organ transplant

Houston, Dec 18: US surgeons have completed the fifth gene-edited pig organ transplant for an Alabama woman who is now free from dialysis and in better health, New York University (NYU) Langone Health has revealed.

TThe surgery marks the latest promising breakthrough in an emerging surgical practice posited as the solution to the organ supply crisis, NYU Langone Health said in a press release.

Towana Looney, 53, donated a kidney to her mother in 1999 but developed kidney failure several years later after a complication during pregnancy caused damaging high blood pressure.

She underwent the seven-hour procedure on November 25 after eight years of dialysis.

"It's a blessing," said Looney. "I feel like I've been given another chance at life. I cannot wait to be able to travel again and spend more quality time with my family and grandchildren."

Doctors expect her to return home in three months. If the pig kidney fails, she can begin dialysis again, Xinhua news agency reported.

Looney's procedure marks the third time that a kidney from a gene-edited pig has been transplanted into a living human, according to the press release.

She is the first to receive a kidney from a pig with 10 gene edits and is currently the only person in the world living with a pig organ, it said.

Data from the Centre for Disease Prevention and Control show that more than one in seven adults, about 35.5 million people, have chronic kidney disease in the United States.

Of those, the National Institutes of Health estimates nearly 808,000 have end-stage kidney disease, but only about 27,000 received kidney transplants in 2023.

Earlier this year, the US surgeons had performed the world's first successful transplant of a genetically-edited pig kidney into a 62-year-old man living with end-stage kidney disease.

Surgeons from Massachusetts General Hospital's Mass General Transplant Centre conducted the four-hour surgery in March.

The patient, Richard 'Rick' Slayman had a kidney transplant at the hospital in 2018, but had to go back on dialysis last year when it showed signs of failure. When dialysis complications arose, his doctors suggested a pig kidney transplant.

"I saw it not only as a way to help me, but a way to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive," said Slayman.