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Pig Brain? The Promise and Peril of Xenotransplantation
A beacon of hope emerged in the world of organ transplants recently with the successful transfer of a pig kidney into a human recipient.
This breakthrough has the potential to revolutionize medicine by addressing the critical shortage of donor organs. However, along with the excitement comes a renewed conversation about the ethical implications of xenotransplantation, the practice of transplanting organs between different species. As I explored in a previous publication, the use of animal organs for human patients presents a complex ethical landscape [1].
Could pig brains be next on the transplant frontier, and if so, what are the potential ramifications?
Kidney, heart and liver
The recipient of the pig kidney is a 62-year-old man named Richard Slayman, who was suffering from end-stage renal failure.
The kidney was sourced from a miniature pig that underwent a remarkable 69 genomic edits, aimed at preventing rejection of the donated organ and reducing the risk of viral infection. Luhan Yang, chief executive of Qihan Biotech in Hangzhou, China, and one of the founders of the biotechnology firm eGenesis in Cambridge, Massachusetts, asserts that this case demonstrates the short-term safety and functionality of these genetically modified…
