US man becomes first person to get heart transplant from genetically-modified pig

In what was a groundbreaking surgical operation that offers hope to people waiting for organ transplant, the heart of a genetically modified pig has been transplanted into a 57-year-old man who was suffering from heart illness.

The patient, identified as David Bennett received the heart at the University of Maryland Medical Center on Friday. As per reports, the university termed the procedure “historic” and a “first of its kind transplant.”

The surgery was carried out after the FDA gave authorization for the transplant through its expanded access provision, According to the Medical Center, Bennett had been judged ineligible for a human heart transplant due to his poor health, leaving the pig transplant the only alternative.

“It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” Bennett said the day before the operation, according to the release. “I look forward to getting out of bed after I recover.”

“This was a breakthrough surgery and brings us one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis. There are simply not enough donor human hearts available to meet the long list of potential recipients,” said Bartley P. Griffith, who carried out the transplant.

“We are moving carefully, but we are also positive that this first-in-the-world surgery will give a significant option to patients in the coming future.”

The United Network for Organ Sharing says over 106,000 people are on organ transplant waiting lists as of Monday. Around 40,000 people got organ transplants last year, with about 3,800 of them being heart transplants. However, due to the organ shortage, 17 people on the waiting lists perish everday, as per the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.

Scientists anticipate that implanting an organ from one species into another will lower the organ shortage and extend the lives of those on waiting lists. Earlier, a kidney grown in a genetically modified pig was transplanted into a brain-dead person at NYU Langone Health.

The pig for the heart transplant was raised for just such line of action by Revivicor, a regenerative medicine company located in Blacksburg.

According to The New York Times, the pig had ten genetic modifications to make the heart acceptable to a human. Some of the modifications are designed to keep the heart from growing after transplant and to make the organ more endurable to the human immune system.

On Friday, the surgical team removed the pig’s heart and put it into a machine that protects it till operation. The surgical team also made use of a new drug made by Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals to keep the human body from refusing the pig’s heart, the medical school said.

Bennett is being closely observed at the hospital. He is still attached to the heart-lung bypass machine that kept him alive ahead of the transplant, but the new heart is functioning, The Times said. Doctors said Bennet will be taken off the bypass machine on Tuesday.

“This is a watershed event,” The chief medical officer of the United Network for Organ Sharing, David Klassen, told The Times. “Doors are starting to open that will lead, I believe, to major changes in how we treat organ failure.”

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