Hope and concerns about an experiment that uncovered genetically modified pigs as a way to improve the management of kidney failure in the New York City hospital
NEW YORK – Towana Looney can hardly contain her anticipation as she waits to get wheeled to an operating room at the NYU Langone Health hospital in New York City for an historic procedure.
The first and second individuals to get a heart transplant from genetically engineered pigs were both at the University of Maryland. The patients were too sick after their surgeries to leave the hospital.
Dr. Robert Montgomery was the lead surgeon on the operation and says that it could completely change the management of organ failure.
She had to return for a few days to have her medication adjusted after she was discharged from the hospital. Nevertheless, her doctors remain optimistic.
I have concerns about the chance of misinterpreting the results of these experiments. He says they are not intended to generate generalizable evidence and are not research trials. “The people who received organs were very sick, and it’s possible that people may make positive or negative conclusions about these experiences.”
“I have a lot of concerns,” says Johnson, who is a bioethicist. “There’s a lot of hope, but hope is not scientific evidence. It is not a great way of doing 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.
Life changing miracles: A transplanted pig kidney offers a grandmother hope for life without dialysis, Ann. Phys. Lett. 88, 2126 (2019)
Looney donated one of her kidneys to her mother in 1999. A few years later, she developed chronic high blood pressure during a pregnancy and her remaining kidney failed in 2016. She’s been on the machine for four hours a day for three days a week.
She had some symptoms before the operation, but they have disappeared. “No weakness.” No fatigue. No fatigue. No swelling from fluid intake. I can eat more. I can drink more. I can walk longer distances. It’s amazing,” she says. “It’s life-changing.”
Source: A transplanted pig kidney offers a grandmother hope for life without dialysis
A Transplanted Pig Kidney Offers a Grandmother Hope for Life without Dialysis: Jayme Locke on a New York University Helipad
“It’s a really big day. “She’s a true pioneer,” says Jayme Locke. She was a doctor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham before moving to NYU. She’s assisting Montgomery today.
A screen on the wall shows a flight path of another group of surgeons. They are flying back from a research farm in Virginia where they have been breeding pigs with cloned genes. NPR got exclusive access to tour the company’s facility last spring.
The surgeons need to untuck the vein and arteries to get Looney’s blood to reach the pig organ.
The helicopter approaching NYU Langone shows the pig kidneys on the screen. The chopper flies through the sky over the East River and lands on the helipad. A crew places a small white box on the ground and rushes to the operating room to remove the pig’s two kidneys, which were left on the wheelchair.
We’re not entirely sure how we’re going to put them in until I see them. Montgomery says that the plan is only to put one in, but we might use the other one as well.
Source: A transplanted pig kidney offers a grandmother hope for life without dialysis
What a pig kidney can do to save a grandmother without dialysis: cheers, applause, and fun in the early stages
Making sure the pig kidney is producing urine is the final step. Montgomery unclamps a tube leading out of the kidney and into the bladder.
“All right – we’re sewing the vein now,” Montgomery says. We are done with the vein, I did my side of it. and we’re moving onto the artery.”
“Here we go,” Montgomery says, prompting another round of cheers and applause as urine starts gushing out. “Look at that. That is great. Look at that. It is beautiful. Gorgeous. It’s pouring out. “Tomorrow I’ll have wet socks,” Montgomery says, laughing, as urine splashes him.
Couldn’t have gone better. Could not have gone better,” he says. “We’re really pleased at this point. But you know it’s early days. It’s a big deal. We’re off to a good start and that’s important.
“When you really think about what we just did it’s pretty amazing,” he says. “Putting a pig organ in a human being and having it work right away? You know, it’s like Stars Wars stuff, right?”
More than 103,000 people are waiting for organs for transplants, and 17 die every day, according to federal statistics. Kidneys are the most-needed organs.
Source: A transplanted pig kidney offers a grandmother hope for life without dialysis
“I’m so excited to be doing this,” Looney says of a pig kidney transplanted to a grandmother hope for life without dialysis
Looney tried other experimental procedures before this, but nothing worked. “This has been a long journey for her,” says Locke, her long-time physician. “Here she is today.” I am excited for her to get her life back.
“It’s a super exciting day,” agrees David Ayares, president and chief scientific officer at Revivicor, who’s been waiting outside the operating room to hear how the surgery went. “Unbelievable.”
“The goal is to have a large supply of organs”, said Ayares. We are trying to solve the shortage of organs. It is important that there is an unlimited supply of organs.
Critics say a careful study is needed to rigorously evaluate the pig kidneys instead of performing these surgeries one-by-one under different conditions.
“The compassionate use experiments have been helpful in advancing the science of xenotransplantation,” says Michael Gusmano, a bioethicist at Lehigh University College of Health.
“It’s difficult to draw conclusions about safety and efficacy from xenotransplants with patients who have different medical profiles,” says Karen Maschke, a bioethicist at The Hastings Center, a biomedical think tank. “It’s also difficult to draw safety and efficacy conclusions when pigs with different gene edits are used.”
Revivicor is asking the FDA to approve a formal clinical trial that could start as soon as 2025. eGenesis of Cambridge, Mass. is also testing organs from another pig.
Johnson is also skeptical that the company is doing enough to prevent the spread of pig viruses to people. There was a pig heart recipient that had a pig virus.
Source: A transplanted pig kidney offers a grandmother hope for life without dialysis
She’s not afraid of crowds, but she does enjoy going out with her family, and giving birth to a child with two kidneys: Towana Looney
She is enjoying cooking, eating and drinking a wider range of foods and beverages, while avoiding crowds and wearing a mask, but she is being careful to avoid crowds. She’s taking medication to reduce her risk of rejecting the kidney, making her vulnerable to infections.
I was surprised. ” she says. “I told the nurse, ‘I’m peeing!’ She said: ‘No kidding. You’re peeing a lot, which is a good thing.’ It was exciting to me.”
Looney, who’s devoutly religious, says she sang church hymns the night before the surgery. But she had no doubts. Her doctors fully explained the risks, she says, and she was unconcerned about pig viruses or other complications. She hopes the procedure will help her and other people in the future.
Looney’s looking forward to returning to her job as a part-time cashier at a Dollar General, traveling and spending more time with her family, especially her two adult daughters and two grandchildren.
Towana Looney, 53, is off of kidney dialysis after undergoing the procedure at NYU Langone Health on November 25. She was discharged from the hospital on December 6, and her doctors say she is in good health. The procedure she is about to undergo involves the practice of transplanting organs from one species to another.