“A New Hampshire man named Tim Andrews has lived with a genetically modified pig kidney since January 25,” reports The Doomslayer. That’s four days longer than the previous record.
CNN reports that Andrews is healthy and his life is “returning to normal”:
Tim Andrews knew that he needed dialysis to manage his end-stage kidney disease, but over months of treatment, he started to wonder whether it was worth it. He was exhausted and hopeless. He missed his grandkids. It kept him alive, but it didn’t feel like living.
Desperate for another option, he found a surprising alternative: an organ from a pig….
During the transplant, doctors “started connecting him to the kidney, and he actually peed across the room,” his wife says.
After the transplant, Andrews spent a week in the hospital but only out of an abundance of caution….Life is returning to normal. Andrews cooks, vacuums and takes long walks with his dog, Cupcake.
He currently takes more than 50 pills every day as the doctors try to figure out the type of medications he’ll need with his new kidney.
Nearly 90,000 people are on the waiting list for a kidney in the US. Most don’t get a transplant because they become too sick or die while waiting for a match.
Andrews’ chances were slimmer than most because of his rare blood type. People typically wait about three to five years for a donor kidney. For him, it would likely be seven to 10 years. Doctors thought his body could take only five years of dialysis…..
Andrews is the fourth living patient in the US to get a genetically modified pig kidney transplant….In March 2024, Richard Slayman became the first living patient in the world to get a genetically modified pig kidney. The operation at Mass General went well, but he died two months later from causes not related to the transplant.
Last November, New York University gave Towana Looney a genetically modified pig kidney. It functioned for over four months, but doctors had to remove the kidney two months ago when her immune system began to reject it.
Researchers are making more genetic modifications to reduce the risk of rejection. The pig kidney Andrews received had 69 genomic edits, while Looney’s had fewer. Scientists still don’t know how many edits are necessary, but both versions of the transplanted pig kidneys had pig genes removed and human genes added to make the kidney more compatible with the human body.
The people who receive pig kidneys also take anti-rejection drugs and wear remote monitoring tools.
A monkey lived for two years with a genetically-modified pig kidney transplant.
Genetically-modified pigs now provide pork and bacon that people who are allergic to pork can eat.
Earlier, the New York Post wrote about “How pigs will save thousands of human lives through organ transplants.”
Even without genetic modifications, a pig kidney worked for a month in a brain-dead man it was transplanted into.
In another scientific advance that could help people who need organ transplants, a patient last year was given a 3D-printed windpipe, using an organ shaped by a 3D-printer: “The patient’s new organ is built with cartilage and mucosal lining (the moist lining that you get in some of your organs and body cavities like your lungs and nose). The scientists obtained nasal stem cells and cartilage cells from other patients to create these elements – cells which were discarded during a procedure to treat nasal congestion and from a nasal septum surgery. But the 3D-printed windpipe also contains polycaprolactone (PCL) for structural support, as well as bio-ink. Rather than the ink you might see in your printer at home, bio-ink carries the living cells needed to create living tissue in 3D-bioprinting.”
