Richard Slayman, A 62-year-old man has made history by becoming the first living person to receive a genetically-modified kidney from a pig, the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) said Thursday, March 21.
Slayman, who has been living with end-stage kidney disease, successfully underwent the four-hour-long operation on Saturday, March 16 to receive the pig kidney.
The procedure, surgeons from Mass General Transplant Center say, marks a major milestone in the quest to provide more readily available organs to patients.
The operation was conducted under the tutelage of Leonardo V. Riella, MD, PhD, Medical Director for Kidney Transplantation, Tatsuo Kawai, MD, PhD, Director of the Legorreta Center for Clinical Transplant Tolerance, along with Nahel Elias, MD, Interim Chief of Transplant Surgery and Surgical Director for Kidney Transplantation.
“The success of this transplant is the culmination of efforts by thousands of scientists and physicians over several decades. We are privileged to have played a significant role in this milestone. Our hope is that this transplant approach will offer a lifeline to millions of patients worldwide who are suffering from kidney failure,” Kawai said.
Pig kidney edited
The pig kidney was genetically-edited using CRISPR-Cas9 technology to remove harmful pig genes and add certain human genes to improve its compatibility with humans. Scientists also inactivated porcine endogenous retroviruses in the pig donor to eliminate any risk of infection in humans.
Slayman has been living with Type 2 diabetes and hypertension for many years. In December 2018 at the same hospital, he received a kidney transplant from a human deceased donor, after being on dialysis seven years before that.
Unfortunately, the transplanted kidney showed signs of failure approximately five years later, with forced to resume dialysis in May 2023.
But even with the dialysis, the prospects were not looking good for Slayman, requiring visits to the hospital every two weeks for de-clotting and surgical revisions.
‘I trusted my doctors’
In a statement from the hospital, Slayman said since he has been their patient for 11 years, he had the highest level of trust in the doctors, nurses, and clinical staff.
“When my transplanted kidney began failing in 2023, I again trusted my care team at MGH to meet my goals of not just improving my quality of life but extending it… [The doctors carefully explained] the pros and cons of this procedure. I saw it not only as a way to help me, but a way to provide hope for the thousands of people who need a transplant to survive,” Slayman said.
