Scientists plan to extend the duration of studies in which genetically modified pig organs are transplanted into brain-dead individuals as part of a long-term effort to address the shortage of life-saving organs.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the move could provide important data to help launch clinical trials of animal-to-human organ transplants in living patients, but it also raises ethical and scientific challenges for doctors and families involved.
Scientists at New York University Langone Health in New York City plan to study how pig kidneys function in brain-dead individuals for two to four weeks, according to Robert Montgomery, director of the New York University Langone Organ Transplant Institute.
Brain death in the United States is defined as the irreversible cessation of all brain function, even if heart and lung activity can be maintained using medical devices.
In four previous New York University studies, families and the University Research Supervisory Committee agreed to allow scientists to study pig hearts and kidneys in their loved ones for up to 72 hours.
The organs came from pigs that had undergone genetic modifications designed to make them more suitable for transplantation into humans.
Dr. Montgomery said the research team chose the shorter time period to gather information about whether the human immune system would immediately reject pig organs and to avoid delaying the mourning process for families.
Previous research involving pig organs transplantation into baboons has shown that pig organs can fail in the first few days after transplantation.
Pig transplants to monkeys indicated another risky period of 14 to 30 days after transplantation, Montgomery said.
Montgomery added that studying pig organ transplants in brain-dead humans over a period of 14 to 30 days could provide important information about the human immune system and provide a better model than baboons.
However, prolonging studies will also delay burials for families.
More than 100,000 people in the United States are on a waiting list for human organ transplants, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, a nonprofit organization that helps under contract with the federal government, with organ allocation.
More than 6,000 people die each year during waiting periods.
And the world previously witnessed experiments on transplanting animal organs into a human body, but the patients were dying instantly. But earlier this year, the United States saw the first transplant of a pig-to-human heart to a patient named David Bennett, 57, at the University of Maryland Hospital Medical Center.
But Bennett died two months after the operation to transplant a pig’s heart into a human body.