The world's first person to receive a pig heart transplant, David Bennett, has died two months after he had a breakthrough surgery.
Earlier this year, David Bennett, a 57-year-old patient in Maryland, became "famous" when he became the first person to receive a pig heart transplant after surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center in the US on January 7. This is the world's first successful human pig heart transplant and marks the first time a genetically modified pig has been used as an "organ donor".
The surgery raises hopes that advances in interspecies transplant technology could one day solve the shortage of human organs.
However, the University of Maryland Medical Center on March 9 issued a notice saying that Mr. Bennett passed away on March 8, exactly 2 months after receiving a heart transplant.
"His condition worsened a few days ago. After it was confirmed he would not recover, Bennett was placed in palliative care. He was still able to talk to his family in the final hours of his life. themselves", the notice from the medical facility said.
After the operation, the pig heart transplanted into Mr. Bennett's body worked well for several weeks and showed no signs of rejection. As a result, Mr. Bennett was able to spend more time with his family, attend physical therapy, watch football and regularly express his desire to go home to see Lucky the dog.
"He was a brave patient who fought to the end. We send our sincerest condolences to his family," said Bartley Griffith, the doctor in charge of the surgery.
Muhammad Mohiuddin, who is in charge of the heart transplant program of the medical facility, stressed that he remains optimistic about the option of pig heart transplantation and continues to conduct clinical trials in the future with this method.
Approximately 110,000 Americans are waiting for an organ transplant, and 6,000 people die each year before an organ is matched or eligible for surgery.
Scientists have worked hard to put the heart from a gene-edited animal into the human body without being rejected. This research has been accelerated over the course of a decade thanks to new gene-editing and cloning technologies.
The transplanted heart for Mr. Bennett was obtained from a genetically modified pig supplied by Revivicor, a pharmaceutical company based in Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. The pig has been genetically edited 10 times. Four genes were removed or inactivated, including one that encodes a molecule that causes rejection in humans.
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