2 Pig Hearts Performed Well—in Dead Human Bodies

Xenotransplants offer hope for thousands of people waiting for organs
By Mike L. Ford,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 12, 2022 4:28 PM CDT
Pig Hearts Performed Well—in Dead Human Bodies
In this photo provided by NYU Langone Health, surgeons prepare to reattach the deceased recipient's blood vessels to a genetically modified pig heart at NYU Langone Health on July 6, 2022, in New York. Experiments are raising new hope that pigs might one day help fill a shortage of donated organs.   (Joe Carrotta/NYU Langone Health via AP)

Pretty soon, pig parts might become common in operating rooms in addition to kitchens and barbecues, though the ones in question would be genetically modified. Researchers at NYU performed successful transplants of genetically modified pig hearts into the bodies of two brain-dead patients. The AP describes the deceased recipients as "a Vietnam veteran from Pennsylvania with a long history of heart disease and a New York woman who’d benefited from a transplant earlier in life." The bodies were hooked up to ventilators to keep them functioning during three days of observation. In both cases "the hearts functioned normally, and there weren’t signs of rejection from the recipients," per the Verge.

That's what researchers were hoping for. The hearts and funding for the experiment came from biotech company Revivicor, which plans to begin full clinical trials in the next year or two. The transplant brings medical science one step closer to widespread use of xenotransplantation, or the transfer of cells, tissues, or organs from one species to another. Such a breakthrough offers hope to tens of thousands of adults and children on persistently long transplant waiting lists. According to NBC New York, the team was led by Dr. Robert Montgomery, a top at surgeon at NYU's Langone Health. He has deep professional and personal experience in the heart transplant arena, having received one himself in 2018 after he died and was revived several times due to an inherited heart condition.

NBC News says pig hearts are popular because they are similar in size to those of humans and they're easy to modify genetically. Before transplantation, researchers "knock out" certain pig genes that would otherwise provoke rejection by the new host, and they "knock in" a few human genes to ensure proper functioning. The NYU team’s work is not the first of its kind. In January, a live patient at the University of Maryland became the first human to receive a transplanted pig heart. His body did not reject it, and he was able to "begin rehabilitation and spend time with his family" before dying two months later, per the Washington Post. Researchers recently concluded that he died of heart failure, but they’re not yet sure what caused it. (More heart transplants stories.)

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