[ A 54-year-old New Jersey woman has become the second living person to receive a genetically engineered pig kidney. The surgery, carried out at NYU Langone Health on April 12, also involved transplanting the pig’s thymus gland to help prevent rejection. The patient, Lisa Pisano, had a mechanical heart pump implanted days before getting the … Read more
[ Other than rejection of the organ, one of the most common transplant complications is infection. Doctors have to strike a balance when prescribing immunosuppressive drugs: too low a dose can lead to rejection, while too much can make a patient vulnerable to infection. Immunosuppressants are powerful drugs that can cause a range of side … Read more
[ In early experiments, Lagasse found that if he injected healthy liver cells into the lymph nodes of mice, the cells would flourish and form a second, smaller liver to take over the functions of the animal’s failing one. The new livers grew up to 70 percent of the size of a native liver. “What … Read more
[ Slayman received his first kidney transplant in 2018 from a human donor. The donor kidney initially functioned well, but Slayman started to go into kidney failure after years of living with diabetes. Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney disease, which can eventually result in kidney failure. He had no choice but to go … Read more
[ That has led researchers to genetically alter pigs in an attempt to make their organs a better match. The biotech company that bred the pig for the Penn study, eGenesis of Cambridge, Massaschetts, is aiming to do that with gene editing. Scientists at the company used Crispr to make a total of 69 genetic … Read more
