There may still be a silver lining to this historic medical achievement that ended in tragedy. Doctors say Richard Suleiman, the world’s first living person to receive a genetically modified pig kidney, did not die from the organ itself.
Suleiman, 62, died in April 2024 at Massachusetts General Hospital, just two months after undergoing an experimental procedure. Shortly after, his doctors reported There was no immediate indication that Suleiman’s death was caused by kidney rejection. in panel discussion In a lecture hosted by the Boston Globe this week, Tatsuo Kawai, chief of transplant surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, confirmed his probable cause of death was an “unexpected cardiac event.” This news is a positive sign that animal-to-human transplants (also called xenotransplants) may be a viable method to solve the long-standing human donor organ shortage.
Although the concept of xenotransplantation has been studied for decades, recent innovations in gene editing technology have made it much more likely. Scientists are now able to delete or add genes to create pigs that are more compatible with human biology. Pigs and other mammals normally produce the sugar alpha-gal, but humans do not. This crucial difference was revealed in engineered pigs.
Early experiments using these organs were primarily conducted on animals and people declared brain dead. Health regulators have begun allowing researchers to perform these experimental transplants on living patients who have few other options. Mr. Suleiman had a long history of type 2 diabetes, which had become increasingly difficult to manage with existing treatments, and became eligible (a few years ago, he received a conventional donor kidney, but by 2020 (became dysfunctional by the year).
Doctors knew that Mr. Suleiman had a history of heart disease, but believed his health was stable enough to proceed with surgery. He was discharged from the hospital two weeks after the transplant and recovered enough to visit the local mall twice before passing away. An autopsy on Suleiman’s body found no signs that his body had rejected the donated kidney or any other related strange signs, Kawai said.
Although innovative, these steps have not yet produced clear success stories. For example, in 2022, David Bennett, the world’s first living person to receive a genetically modified pig heart, died two months after the transplant. The transplanted organs likely contributed to Bennett’s murder, as unlike Suleiman, the transplanted organs were found to contain an undetected swine virus that may have contributed to organ failure. It is thought that he did. That said, even these failures can teach important lessons (for example, Bennett’s case led doctors in the field to better test for hidden microorganisms). And the technology will continue to be tested more extensively in humans.
During the same panel discussion, Mike Curtis, president and CEO of eGenesis, the company primarily responsible for creating the engineered pigs used in this study, shed light on the company’s immediate future. eGenesis will reportedly begin testing kidneys, hearts and livers taken from its own pigs in formal clinical trials starting as early as next year. Kidney and heart trials involve typical transplants, and liver trials allow these organs to be used outside the body for patients with end-stage liver disease, similar to how a dialysis machine takes over the function of a damaged kidney. It will be tested whether
It will take time to see whether these early steps and stumbling blocks lead to real advances in transplant medicine. But considering there are over 100,000 participants in the US alone; waiting list For today’s organ, that’s certainly a goal worth achieving.
