An Alabama woman reached a major milestone on Saturday, becoming the longest-lived recipient of pig organ transplant – Healthy and full of energy with his new kidney for 61 days.
“I'm superwoman,” Towana Looney told The Associated Press. He laughed about leaving family members behind on long walks around New York City as he continued his recovery. “It's a new form of life.”
Strong recovery of Looni is going to boost their morale. Animal to human transplantation a realitylooney the fifth american one given gene-edited pig organs,
“If you saw him on the street, you wouldn't know he was the only person in the world walking around with a pig organ inside him,” said Dr. Robert Montgomery of NYU Langone Health, who led Looney's transplant. Which is working.”
Montgomery described Looney's kidney function as “absolutely normal.” Doctors hope she can leave New York — where she is temporarily staying for post-transplant checkups — for her Gadsden, Alabama, home in about another month.
“We're very optimistic that it's going to work and work well for a long time,” he said.
Why are scientists using pig organs for transplants?
To address the acute shortage of transplantable human organs, scientists are genetically modifying pigs to make their organs more humane. More than 100,000 people are on US transplant lists, most of whom need a kidney, and thousands die while waiting.
Pig organ transplants have until now been a matter of “compassionate use”, with the Food and Drug Administration allowing use only under special circumstances for people who have run out of other options.
And a handful of hospitals that have tested them are sharing information about what worked and what didn't, in preparation for the world's first formal study of xenotransplantation, which is expected to begin sometime this year. United Therapeutics, which supplied Looney's kidneys, recently asked the Food and Drug Administration for permission to begin the trial.
How Loonie fares is a “very valuable experience,” said Dr. Tatsuo Kawai of Massachusetts General Hospital, who led the world's first pig kidney transplant last year and works with another pig developer, Egenesis.
Kawai said Looney was much healthier than previous patients, so her progress will help inform the next efforts.
“We have to learn from each other,” he said.
Tovana Looney's transplant story
Looney donated a kidney to his mother in 1999. Pregnancy complications later caused high blood pressure that damaged her remaining kidney, which ultimately failed, which is incredibly rare among living donors. She spent eight years on dialysis before doctors concluded she would never receive a donated organ – she had developed unusually high levels of antibodies to attack another human kidney.
So 53-year-old Looney invented the pig experiment. No one knew how it would work in a “highly sensitized” person with overactive antibodies.
Discharged just 11 days after surgery on Nov. 25, Montgomery's team has closely monitored his recovery through blood tests and other measurements. About three weeks after the transplant, they got subtle signs that rejection was starting — signs they learned to see thanks to a 2023 experiment when a pig's kidney functioned for 61 days inside a dead person's. The body was donated for research.
Montgomery said she successfully treated Looney and has seen no signs of rejection since — and a few weeks ago she met the family behind that cadaver research.
“It feels really good to know that the decision I made to use my brother for NYU was the right decision and that it's helping people,” said Mary Miller-Duffy of Newburgh, New York.
Looney is in turn trying to help others, with Montgomery serving as an ambassador for those reaching out to her through social media, sharing her frustrations about the long wait for a transplant. And thinking about pig kidneys.
One was being considered for a xenotransplant at another hospital, she said, but she was scared, wondering whether to proceed.
“I didn't want to convince him whether he should do it or not,” Looney said.
Instead, he asked if she was religious and urged her to pray, “Turn away from your faith what your heart tells you.”
“I love talking to people, I love helping people,” he said. “I want to be some educational material for scientists to help others”.
There's no way to predict how long Looney's new kidney will work, but if it fails he could receive dialysis again.
“The truth is we don't really know what the next hurdles are because this is the first time we've gotten this far,” Montgomery said. “We really have to keep a close eye on him.”