However by the end of today this day 17 Americans and more than double that number of patients Sur around the world will die waiting for a transplant because there are just enough not enough donor organs to goow around this organ shortage is the major problem facing transplant today the dream of transplant
Researchers the Holy Grail has been to use Pig organs to supplement the human organs and to solve the problem of the organ shortage why because pigs are an unlimited supply of organs the size of the peig kidneys was exactly the same as human kidneys and despite um difficult uh patient because um
Advanced uh vascular disease in this patient the procedure went well upon restoration of blood flow into the kidneys the kidney pinked up immediately and started to make urine when we saw the first urine output everyone in operating room basting appro it was truly the most beautiful kidney I have ever
Seen we still don’t know how many years uh these kidneys can survive but according based on the our clinical research we are aiming at years at least for two more than two years in the best case scenario but still we have to be careful so the kidney microscopically
When you look at it it looks exactly like a human kidney and it functions very similarly but there were a few things that based on the diversion 80 million years ago between humans and pigs that are different and so the genetic edits that have been made allow
Us to have a much more compatible kidney in terms of coagulation in terms of the compliment system and has removed some of the obstacles that we had fac in terms of hyperacute rejection so these are special sugars that are only are present on the pigs that we have
Antibodies against and so if you remove those sugars suddenly when this place kidneys are placed you don’t have that immediate rejection happening so I think these are three of the major changes that had occurred to make this a more humanized kidney the second part is the part about the infection which of course
Is a concern for uh many people however these pigs are are bred in a very very control environment in not in addition to that there were some many genetic modifications or edits that inactivated certain viruses that are present res in pigs which are called the porcy endogenous retroviruses and if this
Creates just a extra level of safety for us to decide that’s good enough and to move on into transplantation in humans because after you have 30 years of diabetes and hypertension and you’ve undergone uh a f kidney transplant that’s failed uh the vascular Anatomy is really quite complex uh can be diseased
And you have to find the right spot on the vessels to place to implant the kidney uh vascular chore so that’s a challenge and uh he’s a big guy so it took a lot of work in the O it was a fairly it was a high wire act in the O
But this it just it’s a testament to the skill of our surgical team that we’re able to to to Really um uh complete the surgery in only four hours uh and have a successful outcome hi every George Stephanopoulos here thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel if you’d like to
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