Richard “Rick” Suleiman, the first person to receive a kidney transplant from a genetically modified pig, has died nearly two months after the transplant. He was 62 years old.
The historic procedure took place on March 16th at Massachusetts General Hospital.in Statement issued on May 11thThe hospital said there was “no indication” that Suleiman’s death was the result of a pig kidney transplant.
Suleiman received a kidney from a human donor in 2018, but it started failing in 2023. He was a candidate for another human kidney transplant, but because of the lack of available organs for him, he would likely have to wait years before receiving one. Kidneys are the most needed of all donor organs, with approximately 90,000 people waiting to receive a kidney in the United States alone. Researchers have been interested in the idea of using animal organs to address this problem for decades.
Suleiman’s doctors suggested a pig kidney transplant after months of dialysis complications. In dialysis, a machine is connected to major blood vessels to remove waste products and excess fluid when the kidneys stop working. However, Suleiman’s blood vessels repeatedly clotted and failed, requiring him to be hospitalized regularly and severely impacting his quality of life.
Until then, pig kidney transplants had only been tested on recently deceased animals. Suleiman was the first living person to receive it. “I saw it as a way not only to help me, but also to give hope to the thousands of people who need transplants to survive,” Suleiman says. the hospital said in a statement. March.
At a press conference on March 21, Suleiman’s surgical team reported that the kidney began functioning normally shortly after it was placed. But about a week after the transplant, doctors noticed early signs of rejection. They were able to quickly treat Suleiman with drugs to counter this, after which Suleiman’s condition improved so much that he was discharged from the hospital. No further details are available about Suleiman’s condition after his discharge from hospital. In a statement to WIRED, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts General Services Administration said the hospital could not provide any other information at this time.
The second survivor, 54-year-old Lisa Pisano, received a genetically engineered pig kidney last month. The surgery, which included her pig thymus transplant, was performed at NYU Langone Health.
The transplantation of organs from one species to another is known as xenotransplantation. The main obstacle to using pig organs in humans is the human immune system, which recognizes animal tissue as foreign and rejects it.
To address this incompatibility, scientists turned to genetic engineering. In Suleiman’s case, surgeons used a pig with 69 gene edits created by the Cambridge, Mass., biotech company EGenesis. Edits removed harmful pig genes and added certain human genes.
In the New York case, Pisano received a single gene-edited pig kidney manufactured by Rivivicore of Virginia. Her doctors are instead relying on a transplant of a pig’s thymus gland, an organ that is part of the immune system, to prevent rejection. Patients who receive pig transplants must take immunosuppressive drugs for the rest of their lives to reduce the risk of rejection.
In 2022 and 2023, University of Maryland surgeons attempted to transplant gene-edited pig hearts into two patients who were not eligible for human heart transplants. In such cases, pigs with 10 gene edits were used. Both patients died approximately two months after transplantation.
In a statement released by Massachusetts General, Suleiman’s family said they take comfort in the optimism he brings to other patients awaiting transplants. “His legacy will serve as an inspiration to patients, researchers and medical professionals around the world,” they said.
