Topline
Doctors transplanted genetically modified pig hearts into two brain dead patients at NYU Langone Health, the researchers announced Tuesday, in an encouraging step for the growing medical field months after the first ever successful pig heart transplant into a living person.
An NYU Langone Health team prepares for the transplant on July 6.
Key Facts
The transplants occurred June 16 and July 6, and the hearts exhibited normal heart function in the days following the surgery.
Nader Moazami, the heart transplantation surgical director at NYU Langone Transplant Institute who oversaw the procedures, said in a statement the institute hopes to move forward with clinical trials using the organs in the future.
Revivicor, a subsidiary of biotechnology giant United Therapeutics Corporation, funded the study.
Key Background
Genetically modified pig organs have become a growing subject of medical interest and research in recent years amid organ shortages. Last September, teams at NYU Langone Health and the University of Alabama-Birmingham transplanted genetically modified pig kidneys into brain dead humans for the first time ever. In January, a 57-year-old Maryland man, David Bennett, became the first living person to receive a heart from a genetically modified pig, though he died in March. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, who performed the transplant, determined Bennett died of heart failure caused by a “complex array of factors” and not simply rejection of the new organ.
Crucial Quote
Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, said in a statement the study’s “greater purpose is to address the organ shortage and provide another option for the more than 100,000 people nationwide waiting on that lifesaving gift.”
Further Reading
Doctors Successfully Transplanted A Gene-Edited Pig Kidney – And They Have Plans To Scale Up (Forbes)
Pig organ transplants inch closer with testing in the dead (Associated Press)
Man Gets New Heart From Genetically Modified Pig—A First For Medicine (Forbes)
