Surgeons externally attached a pig liver to a brain-dead human body and watched it successfully filter blood, a step toward eventually trying the technique in patients with liver failure, reports U.S. News and World Report. About 10,000 people are currently on the U.S. waiting list for a liver transplant.
On Jan. 18, the University of Pennsylvania announced this different spin on animal-to-human organ transplants. In this experiment, the pig liver was used outside the donated body, not inside. Researchers say this is creates a “bridge” to support failing livers by doing the organ's blood-cleansing work externally, similar to dialysis for failing kidneys.
Xenotransplants (animal-to-human transplants) often fail because people's immune systems reject the foreign tissue. Scientists are trying again with pigs whose organs have been genetically modified to be more humanlike, reports U.S. News and World Report.
In this experiment conducted last month, researchers attached a liver from a pig — one genetically modified by eGenesis — to a device made by OrganOx that usually helps preserve donated human livers before transplant, the article said.