China has made a breakthrough in the transplantation of organs from one species into another, with the country’s first gene-edited pig kidney surviving for over half a year in a monkey.
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It follows the first ever transplant earlier this year of a gene-edited pig liver into a human cancer patient.
Previously, the lack of successful long-term animal tests on gene-edited pig organs has limited the number of clinical trials that can be carried out on human patients.
Around the world, there are only twenty cases of monkeys surviving long term following the transplant of a gene-edited pig kidney, according to the official newspaper Science and Technology Daily.
Chen Gang, who led the team behind the latest experiment at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology’s affiliated Tongji Hospital, told the newspaper this success could drive forward clinical research in the field.
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The team transplanted a single gene-edited pig kidney into a macaque monkey that had its own kidneys removed on May 10. The animal survived for 184 days – which Chen said met the benchmark for long-term survival.
The kidney functioned normally for five months, however after this point its condition deteriorated and the researchers confirmed that the kidney was undergoing rejection.