The University of Maryland Medical Center announced Jan. 10 what could be the first successful transplant in history of the heart from another species into a human, who now has a chance to survive. [https://www.medschool.umaryland.edu/news/2022/University-of-Maryland-School-of-Medicine-Faculty-Scientists-and-Clinicians-Perform-Historic-First-Successful-Transplant-of-Porcine-Heart-into-Adult-Human-with-End-Stage-Heart-Disease.html]
On Jan. 7, surgeons replaced a 57-year-old man’s heart with that of a pig. The procedure, given the go-ahead Dec. 31 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was the first in decades to attempt transplanting a heart into a human from another species, and the first such operation ever to use a heart from a pig engineered to avoid rejection by the human immune system. As of this writing, the patient is doing well, and is now off the heart-lung bypass machine.
Today, 110,000 Americans are on waiting lists for organ transplants. More than 6,000 die each year before getting one, according to the federal government’s website, https://www.organdonor.gov/
In the past, doctors have attempted transplanting organs from animals such as baboons and chimpanzees into humans, a procedure known as xenotransplantation, but recipients did not survive for long. With the advent of gene editing, researchers began to tinker with the genes of pigs to make their organs more acceptable to human immune systems.
