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posted by janrinok on Thursday August 13 2015, @11:53PM   Printer-friendly
from the with-free-curly-tail dept.

Donated human organs are in such short supply that thousands of people die waiting for one every year. U.S. researchers have been shattering records in xenotransplantation, or between-species organ transplants.

The researchers say they have kept a pig heart alive in a baboon for 945 days and also reported the longest-ever kidney swap between these species, lasting 136 days. The experiments used organs from pigs "humanized" with the addition of as many as five human genes, a strategy designed to stop organ rejection.

The GM pigs are being produced in Blacksburg, Virginia, by Revivicor, a division of the biotechnology company United Therapeutics. That company's founder and co-CEO, Martine Rothblatt, is a noted futurist who four years ago began spending millions to supply researchers with pig organs and has quickly become the largest commercial backer of xenotransplantation research.

Rothblatt says her goal is to create "an unlimited supply of transplantable organs" and to carry out the first successful pig-to-human lung transplant within a few years. One of her daughters has a usually fatal lung condition called pulmonary arterial hypertension. In addition to GM pigs, her company is carrying out research on tissue-engineered lungs and cryopreservation of organs. "We're turning xenotransplantation from what looked like a kind of Apollo-level problem into just an engineering task," she says.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Gravis on Friday August 14 2015, @05:08AM

    by Gravis (4596) on Friday August 14 2015, @05:08AM (#222694)

    xenotransplantation is very interesting but i think we will have more success by taking organs, removing the cells and then growing new cells with our own DNA in the remaining collagen scaffolding. it's not a new thing [discovermagazine.com] but i think it has the most promise. of course you could take organs from animals then grow human cells in them but i dont think it's needed since collagen scaffolding in cadavers is still harvestable for many hours.

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  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by mcgrew on Friday August 14 2015, @08:59PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Friday August 14 2015, @08:59PM (#223005) Homepage Journal

    I don't think you've given that much thought. Grow a heart on a scaffold? A liver? However, I'm sure sooner or later they'll figure out how to grow whole new organs inside your body with no scaffolds needed.

    But both are far in the future; in their infancy now. Pig hearts are real, NOW.

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
    • (Score: 2) by Gravis on Saturday August 15 2015, @09:38AM

      by Gravis (4596) on Saturday August 15 2015, @09:38AM (#223203)

      I don't think you've given that much thought. Grow a heart on a scaffold

      LOL! they did that [sciencedaily.com] almost a decade ago.

      • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by mcgrew on Sunday August 16 2015, @10:34PM

        by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Sunday August 16 2015, @10:34PM (#223654) Homepage Journal

        No scaffolds (and I didn't know it was that advanced, thank you). From the link: "Researchers have created a beating heart in the laboratory. By using a process called whole organ decellularization, scientists grew functioning heart tissue by taking dead rat and pig hearts and reseeding them with a mixture of live cells."

        Awesome.

        --
        mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
        • (Score: 2) by Gravis on Monday August 17 2015, @03:52PM

          by Gravis (4596) on Monday August 17 2015, @03:52PM (#223973)

          No scaffolds

          the collagen is the scaffolding! just because it's not 3d printed or some jazz doesn't mean it's not scaffolding.