{"id":1209327,"date":"2022-01-11T19:21:07","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T00:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1209327"},"modified":"2022-01-11T19:21:10","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T00:21:10","slug":"man-receives-heart-transplant-from-genetically-altered-pig-this-has-never-been-done-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/man-receives-heart-transplant-from-genetically-altered-pig-this-has-never-been-done-before\/","title":{"rendered":"Man Receives Heart Transplant From Genetically Altered Pig: \u2018This Has Never Been Done Before\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fman-receives-heart-transplant-from-genetically-altered-pig-this-has-never-been-done-before%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1209327&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"p1\">A 57-year-old man with serious heart disease was given a heart from a genetically modified pig in a new, unprecedented transplant <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/health\/maryland-man-genetically-altered-pigs-heart-first-transplant\">operation<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The New York Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/01\/10\/health\/heart-transplant-pig-bennett.html\">reported<\/a> on the \u201cfirst successful transplant of a pig\u2019s heart into a human being,\u201d a procedure that lasted eight hours and took place in Baltimore, Maryland, on Friday. The man, David Bennett Sr., received the heart and was in good condition on Monday, per surgeons at the University of Maryland Medical Center.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cIt creates the pulse, it creates the pressure, it is his heart,\u201d said Dr. Bartley Griffith, who carried out the operation. He is the director of the cardiac transplant program at the center.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Griffith added, \u201cIt\u2019s working and it looks normal. We are thrilled, but we don\u2019t know what tomorrow will bring us. This has never been done before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cThis is a watershed event,\u201d said Dr. David Klassen, the chief medical officer of the United Network for Organ Sharing and a transplant doctor. \u201cDoors are starting to open that will lead, I believe, to major changes in how we treat organ failure.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cEvents like these can be dramatized in the press, and it\u2019s important to maintain perspective,\u201d Klassen added. \u201cIt takes a long time to mature a therapy like this.\u201d He noted that there are lots of challenges to surpass before an operation like this one could be widely done.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Bennett chose to go forward with the procedure because he would not have survived without getting a new heart, had already gone through with other treatments, and was not healthy enough to meet the qualifications for a heart from a human donor, per members of his family and physicians, according to the Times.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Bennett is still on a heart-lung bypass machine, as he was before the procedure took place, but that is not uncommon for someone who has newly received a heart transplant, according to medical experts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">His physicians stated that he could be brought off the machine on Tuesday. He is also being carefully watched for evidence that his body is fighting the new organ transplant, but he got through the first 48 hours without problems, which is reportedly an important time period.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cIt was either die or do this transplant,\u201d Bennett said before the surgery, according to authorities at the University of Maryland Medical Center. \u201cI want to live. I know it\u2019s a shot in the dark, but it\u2019s my last choice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The outlet reported that the heart which was put into Bennett\u2019s body \u201ccame from a genetically altered pig provided by Revivicor, a regenerative medicine company based in Blacksburg, Va.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The animal \u201chad 10 genetic modifications. Four genes were knocked out, or inactivated, including one that encodes a molecule that causes an aggressive human rejection response,\u201d the outlet noted, adding that a growth gene was also deactivated to not allow the pig\u2019s heart to keep growing after implantation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cIn addition, six human genes were inserted into the genome of the donor pig \u2014 modifications designed to make the porcine organs more tolerable to the human immune system,\u201d the Times noted.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave the transplant doctors an emergency authorization for the procedure on New Year\u2019s Eve.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Dr. Christine Lau is the chair of the Department of Surgery at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and was in the operating room during the procedure.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cHe\u2019s at more of a risk because we require more immunosuppression, slightly different than we would normally do in a human-to-human transplant. How well the patient does from now is, you know, it\u2019s never been done before so we really don\u2019t know,\u201d she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-us-canada-59944889\">told<\/a> the BBC.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">\u201cPeople die all the time on the waiting list, waiting for organs. If we could use genetically engineered pig organs they\u2019d never have to wait, they could basically get an organ as they needed it. \u2026Plus, we wouldn\u2019t have to fly all over the country at night-time to recover organs to put them into recipients,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Times noted that there is an organ shortage and around twelve people on the transplant waiting lists die every day.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The pandemic has impacted the low number of organ donations and transplant operations, as well.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">A May 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pennmedicine.org\/news\/news-releases\/2020\/may\/steep-decline-in-organ-transplants-amid-covid19-outbreak\">report<\/a> from Penn Medicine News noted that by early April 2020 transplant centers in France and the United States were carrying out fewer deceased donor transplants than they had been one month prior.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">The findings, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/lancet\/article\/PIIS0140-6736(20)31040-0\/fulltext\">published<\/a> in The Lancet in May of 2020, noted, \u201cThe overall reduction in deceased donor transplantations since the COVID-19 outbreak was 90\u00b76% in France and 51\u00b71% in the USA, respectively.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\">member<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 57-year-old man with serious heart disease was given a heart from a genetically modified pig in a new, unprecedented transplant operation.\u00a0 The New York Times reported on the \u201cfirst successful transplant of a pig\u2019s heart into a human being,\u201d a procedure that lasted eight hours and took place in Baltimore, Maryland, on Friday. The &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1209327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1209327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1209327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1209327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1209327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1209327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}