First person to receive kidney from pig dies

Massachusetts General Hospital, where Sleiman underwent surgery, released a statement on Saturday saying the transplant team was saddened by his death . According to the hospital, there is no indication that the transplant was the cause of his death. Sleiman, who received a pig kidney transplant, was a supervisor at the state Department of Transportation. He had been suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure for many years, and had been receiving treatment at Mass General for over a decade.

Sleiman was on dialysis for seven years after his kidneys failed. Finally received a human kidney in 2018. However, the transplanted organ failed within five years and he had to start dialysis again. Due to which he developed heart attack and other complications.

End-stage kidney disease affects more than 8 million people in the United States alone. Which will need a transplant at some point . A kidney from a genetically modified pig could cut the years-long wait to get an organ . Richard 'Rick' Schleiman with doctors involved in

treatment. Photo: Massachusetts General Hospital

More than 100,000 are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant from a living or deceased human donor. Dialysis keeps people alive, but the best option is an organ transplant. But due to severe shortage of organs, thousands of patients die every year waiting for a kidney. A total of 25,000 kidney transplants are performed in the US each year.

Pig kidney transplantation into humans

Xenotransplantation, a type of transplantation of animal organs into humans, has been seen as a possible solution for decades. This can make the kidney more widely available. But its challenge is that the human immune system rejects the other's tissues, which can lead to life-threatening complications. Experts say that even organs taken from well-matched donors run the risk of being rejected by the body in the long run.

In recent years, scientific advances including gene editing and cloning have brought xenotransplants closer to reality. This has made it possible to modify an animal's genes to make organs more compatible and less likely to be rejected by the immune system.

World's first human pig heart transplant

The kidney was obtained from a pig engineered by the biotech company Igenesis, which removed three genes involved in potential organ rejection . In addition, seven human genes were also inserted to increase human compatibility . Since pigs are carriers of retroviruses, the company also inactivated the virus that could be transmitted to humans .

Director of the Legorretta Center for Clinical Transplant Tolerance at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA. Tatsuo Kawai and Dr. A team of surgeons, including Nahel Elias, performed a four-hour operation and transplanted Schleiman.