New York surgeons transplanted a pig’s kidney into a brain-dead man and for over a month it’s worked normally

  • BadEngineering@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is really exciting news, The severe lack of viable transplant organs has been a serious hinderance to the medical profession. If the process can be perfected this has the potential to save millions of lives.

    • thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      I’m betting that we’ll be able to clone organs before this is ever a truly viable option. It might be used as a stop gap until an organ is grown, but I seriously doubt it’ll be a main course of treatment.

  • roguetrick@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Wait, they transplanted a pig’s kidney into a… corpse? How did they get authorization for that experiment exactly? The family donated the body to science? I know they’d have just kept him on dialysis if they were actually attempting to prolong his heart beating corpse status.

    • WtfEvenIsExistence3️@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      1 year ago

      The possibility that pig kidneys might one day help ease a dire shortage of transplantable organs persuaded the family of Maurice “Mo” Miller from upstate New York to donate his body for the experiment.

      “I struggled with it,” his sister, Mary Miller-Duffy, told the AP about her decision. But he liked helping others and “I think this is what my brother would want. So I offered my brother to them.”

      "He’s going to be in the medical books, and he will live on forever,” she added.

  • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    That’s nothing, I’ve been transplanting pig tissue into my organs for years and I’m doing fine. Some of the biggest risks come from the cooking stage but it’s otherwise pleasant.