An Alabama woman recently became the fifth ever American to receive an organ transplant from a gene-edited pig. Towana Looney is reportedly making a strong recovery after receiving a “second chance” from a pig kidney transplant last month. The monumental surgery marks the third time a kidney from a gene-edited pig has been transplanted into a human.
Looney had been battling kidney failure for years, having to go on dialysis in 2016. However, the operation was her “second chance at life,” which has left her feeling “blessed.” Offering words of encouragement to others suffering similar medical challenges on dialysis, she said, “I want to give courage to those out there on dialysis.”
Looney is reportedly the first healthy patient to have been given a genetically modified pig kidney, where other similar operations have been unsuccessful. Furthermore, if Looney’s procedure proves to be effective, the implications could be far-reaching for those in need of organ transplants, in light of a shortage.
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst and NYU Langone clinical professor of medicine said, “We have a great shortage of body organs,” he said. “And even if we get people to donate, we’re still going to have a big shortage … so we’ve got to do something.” He added, “We can bio-engineer them, or we can use them from other species, [which is] called xenotransplant.”
Furthermore, Siegel applauded Looney for her bravery after having previously donated a kidney to her mother. NYU Langone Transplant Institute Director Dr. Robert Montgomery also praised Looney. “She gave the gift of life to her mother,” he noted. “She’s someone who already paid a really significant price for an incredible act of generosity.”
Montgomery added, “She is looking for any other possibility, any other chance, at having a normal life again” before claiming Looney could fundamentally “change the face of transplantation.” He continued, “My epiphany in living through that – and realizing that I probably wouldn’t live through it – was that we needed another source of organs.” Montgomery, explained that “far less” than 1% of all people who die every year are eligible to be an organ donor, promoting the extreme shortage.
“At the same time, the number of people who can benefit from an organ transplant continues to increase,” he added. “That’s why going forward, in the future, this is going to be a big deal when we get past the rejections,” Siegel said. “This is the future,” he noted. “It’s like a new beginning,” Looney told The Associated Press. She said “the energy I had was amazing. To have a working kidney — and to feel it — is unbelievable.”
“It could completely change the management of organ failure,” Montgomery said in other comments. “It would change everything. I think it would revolutionize medicine for sure.” However, there were some concerns from medical professionals. “I have many concerns,” according to L. Syd M Johnson, a bioethicist at SUNY Upstate Medical University. “There’s a lot of hope, but hope is not scientific evidence. And it’s not a great way to do science — as a series of one-off experiments by different research teams, using different protocols, organs with different gene edits, and dying patients who have run out of options.”
Featured image credit: kallerna, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pig_farm_Vampula_1.jpg
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