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Organ Transplants Give New Meaning to "I'm Such a Pig" By Heather Watt  |
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 The little soft, pink piglets may be man's new best friend. They're probably closer genetically to man than dogs are, due to new medical techniques that infuse pig sperm with 6 human genes to allow pig organs to be transplanted to humans without rejection. Lord Robert Winston, a fertility expert from Imperial College in London, says that the first transplants from pigs to humans could begin in the next ten years.
The process of transplanting an animal organ to a human is called xenotranplantation, and it has been tried for hundreds of years will little success. Since the 1980s, baboon organ transplants have been attempted, but the primary obstacle was organ rejection. In Winston's study, pigs are "humanized" by developing organs with proteins from human genes, so when a human receives a pig organ, it would be recognized as a human organ. The theory is that traditional medications given to transplant patients would reverse any rejection as they do normally, with human organs. This is good news for the medical community, as thousands of people in need of transplants are on waiting lists for organs that aren't available. Only about 20 percent of people around the world who need transplants ever receive them. "In demand" organs include livers, kidneys, lungs, and hearts.
Cells from fetal pigs have successfully been transplanted to Parkinson's Disease patients since 1997 to improve physical functioning. No pig organs have actually been transplanted yet, and if successful, several tests would be necessary to make sure that the procedure is safe. The primary concern, assuming that pig organs are not rejected with this new technique, is that pig viruses would be transferred to humans. However, pigs used for organs would grow in a sterile environment and a specific, virus-free breed of pig would be used. There are more restrictions in Europe for pig breeding, so Winston has moved his breeding research to the United States.
The technique may not be accepted by everyone at this point, but it is progress and an inventive way to help people in need of transplants. Even if pig organs did not perform up to the normal function of human organs, they might still give years more life to a terminally ill person who would not otherwise receive an organ.
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