Chinese doctors said on Wednesday that they had transplanted a liver from a genetically modified pig into a brain-dead human for the first time, raising hopes of a live-saving donor option for patients in the future.<\/p>\n
Pigs have emerged as the best animal organ donors, with several living patients in the United States having received pig kidneys or hearts in the last few years.<\/p>\n
Livers have proved trickier \u2014 and had not previously been tested out inside a human body. But with a huge and growing demand for liver donations across the world, researchers hope that gene-edited pigs can offer at least temporary relief to seriously ill patients on long waiting lists.<\/p>\n
Doctors at the Fourth Military Medical University in Xi\u2019an, China, announced the field\u2019s latest breakthrough in a study in the journal Nature.<\/p>\n
A liver from a miniature pig, which had six edited genes to make it a better donor, was transplanted into a brain-dead adult at the hospital on March 10, 2024, according to the study.<\/p>\n
The trial was terminated after 10 days at the request of the family, the doctors said, adding that they had followed strict ethical guidelines.<\/p>\n
\u2018Bridge organ\u2019
\nThe patient, whose name, gender and other details were not revealed, still had their original liver, receiving what is called an auxiliary transplant.<\/p>\n
The hope is that this kind of transplant can serve as a \u201cbridge organ\u201d to support the existing liver of sick people waiting on a human donor.<\/p>\n
Over the 10 days, the doctors monitored the liver\u2019s blood flow, bile production, immune response and other key functions.<\/p>\n
The pig liver \u201cfunctioned really well\u201d and \u201csmoothly secreted bile\u201d as well as producing the key protein albumin, study co-author Lin Wang of the Xi\u2019an hospital told a press conference. \u201cIt\u2019s a great achievement\u201d that could help people with liver problems in the future, he added.<\/p>\n
Other researchers also hailed the breakthrough but emphasised that this early step could not confirm whether the pig organ would work as a replacement for human livers.<\/p>\n
Transplants of livers have proved difficult because they carry out several different functions \u2014 unlike hearts, for example, which simply pump blood, Lin said.<\/p>\n
Livers filter the body\u2019s blood, breaking down things such as drugs and alcohol, as well as producing bile that carries away waste and breaks down fats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pig liver produced far smaller amounts of bile and albumin than a human liver could achieve,\u201d Lin said. \u201cMore research is needed, including studying the pig liver for more than 10 days,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chinese doctors said on Wednesday that they had transplanted a liver from a genetically modified pig into a brain-dead human for the first time, raising hopes of a live-saving donor option for patients in the future. Pigs have emerged as the best animal organ donors, with several living patients in the United States having received […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7430,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7428\/revisions\/7430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}