More than 100,000 Americans are on waiting lists for donors, most need kidney. Only 25,000 kidneys of human donor are available every year. Twelve Americans on the kidney list dies every day on average.
Scientists were first transplanted genetically modified pig organs into other animals and then into human patients with brains. In 2022, the researchers were licensed to transplant the organs into some patients with critical disease, and then last year to healthier people.
Now, for the first time, a formal clinical trial of the process begins.
“Imagine, you have kidney disease and you know that your kidneys are going to fail and you have the kidneys of a pig waiting for you – and you never see dialysis,” said Mike Curtis, President and CEO of Egenesis.
It provides for a future in which genetic engineering will make pig organs so compatible with humans that patients should not take strong medications that prevent rejection, but make them vulnerable to infections and cancer.
Babies born with severe heart imperfections could be temporarily given the heart of a pig while waiting for a human heart donor. The liver of a pig could potentially serve as a bridge for those who need human liver.
Some scientists argue that there is a moral check to move on.
“Is it moral to let thousands of people die every year on a waiting list when we have something that could potentially save their lives?” Asked by Dr. David KC Cooper, who is studying Harvard and is a consultant to Egenesis.
“I think it starts to be morally unacceptable to let people die when there is an alternative treatment that seems quite encouraging.”
But critics say that Xenotransplantation is a housing pie effort in the sky aimed at resolving a lack of technology instruments when there is a simpler solution: expanding the supply of human organs by encouraging more donation.
And Xenotransplantation is changing with unanswered questions.
Pigs can carry pathogens that can find their way to people. If a deadly virus, for example, occur in patients with transplantation, could spread with catastrophic consequences.
It may be years or even decades before the symptoms occur, Christopher Bobier, a bioethics from the College of Medicine at the University of Central Michigan, warned.
“A possible animal metaphor could occur anywhere after a transplant – in timelessness,” he said. The risk is believed to be small, he added, “but not zero.”
