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American research team has succeeded in transplanting pig kidneys into humans. Research on transplanting animal organs into humans has been around for a long time, but this is the first time that an actual transplant has been successful.
Correspondent Kim Jong-won of New York.
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Pigs have organs that are most similar to humans, and research on organ transplantation between humans and pigs has been ongoing for a long time.
However, it was not successful because of immune rejection from transplantation of organs from other species, so-called xenogeneic livers.
Recently, however, a research team at New York University in the United States succeeded for the first time in transplanting a pig kidney into a patient who was brain-dead due to renal failure.
[Robert Montgomery/Director of Transplantation Research Center, Langon Medical Center, New York University: After observing the pig kidney for 54 hours, it was found that the kidney was working perfectly. It was the same as receiving a kidney transplant from a living person.]
This transplantation was carried out with the pig kidney connected to the thigh, not the inside of the human body. It has succeeded in creating and performing normal kidney function.
In this experiment, pigs whose genes were edited so as not to cause immune rejection were used.
[Robert Montgomery/Director of the Transplant Research Center, Langon Medical Center, New York University: I know well how it feels to have to wait for an organ to be transplanted because it cannot be obtained in a timely manner. This study will change the future of our children.]
The American medical community welcomed the success of the transplant, saying that it could solve a significant part of the organ supply shortage that plagued patients, but some animal groups criticized that pigs should not be killed for human treatment. I did.
(Video coverage: Lee Sang-wook, video editing: Jung Yong-hwa)