US surgeons successfully implant pig heart in human: statement

January 10th, 2022

Awake Goy

US surgeons have successfully implanted a heart from a genetically modified pig in a human patient, a first of its kind procedure, the University of Maryland Medical School said Monday.

The surgery took place Friday, and demonstrates for the first time that an animal heart can survive in a human without immediate rejection, the medical school said in a statement.

The patient, David Bennett, had been deemed ineligible for human transplant.

The 57-year-old Maryland resident is being carefully monitored to determine how the new organ performs.

“It was either die or do this transplant. I want to live. I know it’s a shot in the dark, but it’s my last choice,” he said a day before the surgery.

Bennett, who has spent the last several months bedridden on a life support machine, added: “I look forward to getting out of bed after I recover.”

The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency authorization for the surgery on New Year’s Eve, as a last ditch effort for a patient who was unsuitable for conventional transplant.

“This was a breakthrough surgery and brings us one step closer to solving the organ shortage crisis,” said Bartley Griffith, who surgically transplanted the pig heart.

“We are proceeding cautiously, but we are also optimistic that this first-in-the-world surgery will provide an important new option for patients in the future.”

Bennett’s donor pig belonged to a herd that had undergone a genetic editing procedure to knock out a gene that produces a particular sugar, which would otherwise have triggered a strong immune response and led to organ rejection.