Maurice Miller, a 57-year-old man who is brain-dead, is being kept alive at NYU Langone Health in New York City for a groundbreaking study. Doctors are studying his transplanted pig kidney, which has been functioning for 32 days, a record-breaking time. This is significantly longer than what was previously observed in pig kidney transplants in humans, and researchers are hopeful for even longer success. While ethical concerns exist around prolonging studies, Miller’s family and a research committee have agreed to continue the experiment until mid-September.
Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of NYU Langone’s transplant institute, expresses optimism about the pig kidney, stating that it looks even better than a human kidney. The pig kidney used in the transplant underwent a single DNA edit to modify the gene responsible for a sugar molecule on the surface of pig cells. This modification reduces the risk of rejection by the human immune system. Other transplant researchers have experimented with multiple gene edits, with one case involving 10 edits that successfully worked for seven days.
Despite Miller’s sudden death from an undiagnosed brain cancer, his sister Mary Miller-Duffy believes that he would have wanted to contribute to medical research. She offered her brother for the study, stating that he will live on forever in medical books. If the pig kidney surpasses the 60-day mark, there is hope that the FDA will permit further studies involving live volunteers in need of a transplant. Last year, a pig heart was transplanted into a dying man, who survived for two months.
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