Joe Carrotta for NYU Langone Health
NYU Langone Health announced today that its surgeons successfully transplanted two genetically modified pig hearts into cadavers, moving researchers one step closer to performing xenotransplants—organ transplants between two different species—regularly in living patients.
The two surgeries took place in June and early July, and were performed on “recently deceased donors maintained on ventilator support,” according to a press release. Following multi-hour transplant surgeries, a team led by NYU Transplant Institute heart surgeon Nader Moazami monitored the organ’s function for three days.
“Our goal is to integrate the practices used in a typical, everyday heart transplant, only with a nonhuman organ that will function normally without additional aid from untested devices or medicines,” Moazami said in the press release. “We seek to confirm that clinical trials can move ahead using this new supply of organs with the tried-and-true transplant practices we have perfected at the NYU Langone Transplant Institute.”
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