All over the world, scientists tirelessly try to find ways to solve or innovate many of the world’s medical issues. Whether it’s something small or something big like trying to find the cure for cancer. No matter what it is, there is no doubt that they try to solve issues that many people face. A major issue that isn’t really talked about much is the countless amounts of people needing organs and having to be put on a waitlist as a result of a lack of donors. However, a recent procedure occurred on September 25 in which surgeons successfully transferred a genetically modified pig kidney onto a human. This procedure could be the solution to this major problem and the start of something big.

There are over hundreds of thousands of people waiting for someone generous enough to donate an organ that they need. Organ transplants can range anywhere from kidney transplants, which is common, all the way to small intestine transplants, a type of transplant that is seen as very rare. Nevertheless, these transplants cannot happen if people do not donate their organs. This is a serious issue as countless amounts of lives depend on organ donors. According to Luhan Yang in her TED Talk, How to create a world where no one dies waiting for a transplant, “Over the last few decades, the issue has only worsened as organ demand has exponentially increased”. This quote explains that as time progressed, the organ shortage issue has increased impacting hundreds of thousands of lives. However, on September 25, surgeons performed a procedure that is nothing short of revolutionary. They managed to take a kidney from a genetically modified pig and have it function normally inside a human. According to The New York Times, ” This worked immediately”. This could be the start of solving the organ donor issue as this procedure shows that transplanting organs from pigs is possible. If all goes well, people won’t have to be on waitlists anymore and the number of lives lost due to organ shortage could go down at a significant rate.

You may be wondering, out of all the animals in the world, why use pigs? Believe it or not, we are somewhat identical to pigs internally! We may look completely different from each other on the outside, but on the inside some pigs share the same organ size and physiology as  humans. For this reason, pig organs were used for the procedure. However, you can’t just use any regular pig for this. Luhan Yang explained in her TED Talk that the only way to do this procedure is through genetically modified pigs. This is due to the case that pigs are born with a virus called PERV. According to Yang, “…this virus has the potential to cause a viral epidemic similar to HIV”. Additionally, non genetically modified pig organs do not work inside our body. According to CBS News, Dr. Montgomery states that they solved this issue by “…genetically engineering the donor pig so that it didn’t have the enzyme that the human body is designed to immediately attack”. Since these issues are solved, genetically modified pigs are the perfect species to conduct this experiment with. They are accepted into our body and do not contain any virus that could be harmful to us.

This procedure could serve as the gateway to the future. If you think about it carefully, people from a decade or two ago could only dream of us achieving this milestone. For this reason, this new procedure is extremely significant as people who depend on organ donors wouldn’t have to rely on them anymore. Instead, they could count on genetically modified pigs to give them the organ they need and save their life. While surgeons may have potentially succeeded in a kidney transplant, they are currently working hard to have transplants succeed with other genetically modified pig organs. According to BBC, “Dr. Montgomery believes that within a decade, other pig organs – hearts, lung and livers – could be given to humans needing transplants”. This quote from Dr. Montgomery explains that this procedure is the start of something that could impact more than hundreds of thousands of people in a positive manner. Therefore, this procedure could pave the way to the future when it comes to organ transplants. People will no longer have to lose their life waiting for someone to donate their organ.

In conclusion, this procedure is a revolutionary breakthrough as it is the first time surgeons have successfully transplanted an organ from a pig to a human. It is very significant as it paves the way to find the answer for organ shortage. Lives will no longer have to be lost due to a lack of organ donors as they can possibly now rely on genetically modified pigs for their organs. Through these pigs, they no longer contain the PERV virus and can no longer be rejected by the human body. Consequently, this procedure is groundbreaking and could greatly impact those on a waitlist for a specific organ in a positive manner.

 

Works cited:

Cohen, Li. “Surgeons Tested a Pig Kidney Transplant in a Human Patient – and for the First Time, It Worked.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 20 Oct. 2021, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pig-kidney-transplant-human-patient/.

 

How to Create a World Where No One Dies Waiting for a … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgBnYr0_FRk.

 

Rabin, Roni Caryn. “In a First, Surgeons Attached a Pig Kidney to a Human, and It Worked.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Oct. 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/health/kidney-transplant-pig-human.html.

 

Roberts, Michelle. “US Surgeons Test Pig Kidney Transplant in a Human.” BBC News, BBC, 21 Oct. 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58993696.