A leading surgeon involved in a clinical trial transplanting gene-edited pig kidneys into humans has suggested that such organs could eventually outperform human donations. Dr Robert Montgomery, director of NYU Langone's Transplant Institute, said the first transplant in the trial has already taken place, with another expected in January. The trial initially involves six patients receiving pig kidneys edited in ten genetic locations to reduce the risk of rejection.
If approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, the trial will expand to include 44 further transplants. The approach, known as xenotransplantation, aims to address the chronic shortage of human organs. In the UK alone, more than 12,000 people have died or been removed from the transplant waiting list in the past decade, according to NHS Blood and Transplant.
Dr Montgomery, who received a heart transplant in 2018 after suffering seven cardiac arrests, said the scarcity of organs is a severe problem. 'Unless you've walked in the shoes of somebody who's waiting for a transplant, you don't really fully understand how unlikely it is that you're going to receive a transplant in time,' he told the Guardian.
He noted that gene editing could make pig organs superior to human ones. 'They could be superior at some point because we can constantly modify them to make them better, where you can't do that with a human organ,' he said. Studies also suggest transplanting the pig's thymus alongside the kidney could improve tolerance, potentially reducing the need for anti-rejection drugs.
