Modern Medical Laboratory Journal

Physicians and scientists worldwide have for decades been pursuing the goal of transplanting animal organs into people, known as xenotransplantation. Xenotransplantation has seen significant advances in recent years with the advent of CRISPR–Cas9 genome editing, which made it easier to create pig organs that are less likely to be attacked by human immune systems. The latest transplant, performed at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), used organs from pigs with ten genetic modifications. The heart used in the transplant came from a pig with several genetic modifications, including some to knock out genes that trigger the human immune system. 

The researchers had applied to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to do a clinical trial of the pig hearts in people but were turned down. According to Muhammad Mohiuddin, the University of Maryland surgeon who leads the research team behind the transplant, the agency was concerned about ensuring that the pigs came from a medical-grade facility and wanted the researchers to transplant the hearts into ten baboons before moving on to people. But 57-year-old David Bennett gave Mohiuddin’s team a chance to jump straight to a human transplant.
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