University of Pennsylvania Research Shows Pig Livers Might One Day Be Transplanted to Humans

The University of Pennsylvania has announced a medical research breakthrough by its team of medical surgeons who externally attached a pig liver to a brain-dead human body and watched it successfully filter blood, which is just one step toward eventually trying the technique in patients with liver failure.

 

The researcher procedure, known  medically as xenotransplantation, is the technique of transferring animal organs to human patients with liver failure. 

The pig liver was used outside the donated body, not inside. This is part of efforts to better support failing livers, much like dialysis for failing kidneys.

The update shared by international news outlets today, January 21, 2024, said the University of Pennsylvania announced the novel experiment on Thursday. The researchers said the pig liver was used outside the donated body, not inside as a means to create a "bridge" to support failing livers by doing the organ's blood-cleansing work externally, much like dialysis for failing kidneys.

Though animal to human transplants have failed for decades because people's immune systems rejected the foreign tissue, the scientists are repeating the process with pigs whose organs have been genetically modified to be more humanlike.

The researchers noted that in recent years, kidneys from genetically modified pigs have been temporarily transplanted into brain-dead donors to see how well they function. 

However, two men who had received heart transplants from pigs are both recorded to have died within months.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to allow a small number of Americans who need a new organ to volunteer for rigorous studies of either pig hearts or kidneys.

Some researchers also are looking to use pig livers. A liver has different complexities than kidneys and hearts: It filters blood, removes waste and produces substances needed for other bodily functions. About 10,000 people are currently on the U.S. waiting list for a liver transplant.

In the Penn experiment, in review, researchers attached a liver from a pig, which was genetically modified by eGenesis to a device made by OrganOx that usually helps preserve donated human livers before transplant.

The family of the deceased, whose organs weren't suitable for donation, offered the body for the research. Machines kept the body's blood circulating.

The experiment, conducted last month, filtered blood through the pig liver-device for 72 hours. In a statement, the Penn team reported that the donor's body remained stable and the pig liver showed no signs of damage.

A keen observer of the procedure, Dr. Parsia Vagefi of UT Southwestern Medical Center who commented from the sideline based on the findings of the research group, said the findings by the xenotransplantation researchers was worth being monitored closely.

"I applaud them for pushing this forward," Vagefi said, calling this combination pig-device approach an intriguing step in efforts toward better care in cases of liver failure.