Little pigs with big genome edits could be the future of organ donation.
The work, funded by biotechnology company eGenesis, is the latest in a string of efforts seeking to use other species to address global organ shortages. The new study is “promising work and a step in the right direction,” says Parsia Vagefi, a transplant surgeon at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, who was not involved with the research.
In the United States, the demand for new organs to replace damaged or diseased ones far outpaces supply. As of October 11, nearly 104,000 Americans sit on the national transplant waiting list. Some 89,000 of these people are seeking kidneys. ”There just simply aren’t enough kidneys to go around,” said eGenesis president and CEO Mike Curtis in a news conference on October 10. Most people waiting will never get the offer, he says. “They will die on dialysis.”
That’s where cross-species transplantation — giving people organs from other animals — comes in, Curtis said. It’s “the only near-term viable solution to solving this huge shortfall in organ availability.”
2023-10-11 10:45:46
Article from www.sciencenews.org