American surgeons removed a transplanted genetically modified pig kidney from Towana Looney due to the onset of rejection, Science writes. The woman became the third patient to receive such an organ, and lived with it for a record period of four months and nine days. Previously, she donated a kidney to her own mother, but later her organ began to fail, and she agreed to a xenotransplant. At first, everything went well, but after four months, signs of organ damage and dysfunction began to appear. Employees of the Langone Institute of Transplantology at New York University (NYU Langone), led by its director Robert Montgomery, who transplanted the pig kidney, decided not to take risks and remove it.
The Alabama patient was put back on hemodialysis and put on a waiting list for a donor kidney transplant, and is doing well. Despite the outcome, she says she is happy with the procedure, which allowed her to live a full life without dialysis for 130 days. Timothy Andrews from New Hampshire, who underwent surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, is currently living with a pig GM kidney. The first two recipients died from underlying conditions after surviving 2-2.5 months. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has already approved pilot clinical trials of such organs.