China achieves historic first in successful pig lung transplant

In 2023, researchers at the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangshou Medical University in China accomplished a groundbreaking medical procedure by performing the first pig lung xenotransplantation. This milestone involved the transplantation of a genetically modified pig lung into a 39-year-old brain-dead patient who had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. The procedure was documented in an August 2023 report published in the journal Nature. The pig lung, which had undergone six genomic edits, was created by Chengdu Clonorgan Biotechnology in China and was monitored closely after being transplanted. The transplant was specifically aimed at assessing the lung’s performance against the human immune response and the risk of “hyperacute rejection,” which is a rapid rejection of transplanted organs. The lung functioned effectively during the nine days it was monitored. In the initial 24-hour timeframe, the medical team observed some lung swelling and tissue damage, but these issues were anticipated as part of the procedure. There were subsequent signs of damage caused by antibodies attacking the transplanted organ, particularly noted on the third and sixth days post-transplantation. However, by day nine, this antibody-induced damage had diminished somewhat. The study concluded at the request of the patient's family after nine days, demonstrating both the potential and the challenges presented by pig-to-human lung transplantation. Although the initial results were promising, researchers acknowledged that significant challenges related to organ rejection and infection still need to be addressed before this method can be considered for clinical use in living patients. Muhammad Mohiuddin, a surgeon and researcher who led the first successful pig heart transplant in 2022, commented on the difficulty of lung transplants in general, as they are particularly vulnerable to immune rejection compared to other organs. Despite these challenges, the success of this pig lung transplant represents a significant step forward in xenotransplantation, highlighting the ongoing efforts to address the critical shortage of human organs available for transplantation. This breakthrough could pave the way for future studies and trials that may one day make organ transplantation from genetically modified pigs a viable option for patients in need of life-saving procedures.