According to media reports, on March 25th, a team led by Qin Weijun, director of the Department of Urology at the Xijing Hospital of the Air Force Medical University, successfully performed a xenotransplantation surgery of a multi-gene-edited pig kidney into a brain dead recipient.
During the procedure, a kidney from a multi-gene-edited pig was transplanted into the body of a brain dead recipient.
As of April 7th, the transplanted pig kidney has been functioning well for 13 days, producing urine normally.
Regarding the crucial issue of immune rejection in organ transplantation, Qin Weijun stated that the most prominent transgenic technology currently is CRISPR/Cas9. They have reduced xenotransplant rejection reactions through two major strategies: knocking out and transfection.
This undoubtedly marks a significant step forward for China in the field of xenotransplantation of kidneys, laying a foundation for clinical research and application in this area.
It's worth noting that just recently, the Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States successfully performed a gene-edited pig kidney transplant surgery on a 62-year-old man named Slayman, who has since been discharged after recovering.
This marks the world's first instance of such an experimental surgery being performed on a living person, with the earlier two cases being conducted on patients who were brain-dead.
In order to ensure the success of the surgery, the medical team genetically modified the pig kidney 69 times, removing pig genes that could be harmful to the human body while introducing beneficial human genes.
On the 8th day post-surgery, Slayman experienced immune rejection, fortunately, it was promptly reversed.
