In the case of patients in need of transplants, hope comes to miniature hooves

Over 100,000 Americans are on waiting lists for the donor organs, they need kidneys the most. Only 25,000 kidneys of human donors are available each year. Twelve Americans He dies on the kidney list every day.

Scientists first transplanted genetically modified the pig organs to other animals, and then to patients with dead brains. In 2022, scientists received permission to transplant organs on several critically unwell patients, and then last year, to healthier people.

Now a formal clinical trial of the procedure begins for the first time.

“Imagine that you have kidney disease and you know that your kidneys fail and the pig kidney is waiting for you – and you never see dialysis,” said Mike Curtis, president and general director of Egeneza.

It predicts the future in which genetic engineering will make the pig organs so compatible with people that patients will not have to take robust drugs that prevent rejection, but make them susceptible to infections and cancer.

Infants born with grave heart defects can temporarily be given to the heart of a pig, waiting for the human heart of the donor. The pig’s liver can potentially serve as a bridge for people who need a human liver.

Some scientists say that there is a moral imperative to move on.

“Is it ethical to allow thousands of people to die every year on the waiting list when we have something that could save their lives?” – asked Dr. David KC Cooper, who studies xenotransplantation on Harvard and is a consultant of Egenesis.

“I think it is ethically unacceptable so that people die when there is an alternative therapy that looks quite encouraging.”

But critics say that xenotransplantation is a hubristic, stove undertaking aimed at solving organs deficiency with technology, when there is a simpler solution: expanding the supply of human organs by encouraging a larger donation.

And xenotransplantation is repelled with unanswered questions.

Pigs can wear pathogens that can find a way to people. For example, if a fatal virus would appear in patients with a transplant, it can spread with catastrophic consequences.

It may pass years or even decades before observing the symptoms, warned Christopher Bobier, a bioethicist from Central Michigan University College of Medicine.

“Potential animal transfer may occur at any time after the transplant – constantly,” he said. It is believed that the risk is miniature, he added: “But this is not zero.”