Future Organ Transplantation: Pigs are made into organ donors for sick people through gene editing

Worldwide, there is a critical shortage of donor organs, and researchers are working feverishly to discover a cure. As a result, a large number of people pass away every day from lack of access to the needed liver, heart, or lung. More than one lakh adults, children, and minors are in need of organ transplants. For more than a decade, scientists have attempted to solve this shortage by studying xenotransplantation, often known as cross-species donating. A new international research project aims to employ CRISPR gene editing on pigs to make them safe organ donation candidates for humans in order to address the issues of organ rejection during transplantation.

The hosts' rejection of transplanted cells, one of the most challenging issues, has been resolved by researchers in the United States. Pigs used for the experiment with compromised immune systems may contribute to the development of human life-saving medications. Since pig organs resemble human organs in size and architecture, they are attractive as possible organ donors. Many researchers and biotech companies around the globe are involved in the similar kind of research to meet the need of the organs.

Some of the most outstanding research on pigs using CRISPR: A new hope

In an experiment, carried out by researchers from the University of Missouri, the pigs not only received human stem cells, but also flourished after receiving them. The research makes them promising candidate to be used as donors for organ transplantation.
Qihan Biotech researchers used CRISPR to modify the DNA of pigs to make them more compatible with humans. The scientists made 13 genetic changes to the pigs in the goal of making them more compatible with the human body.
eGenesis a biotech company had modified an unprecedented number of genes in pig embryos using the gene editing tool CRISPR in order to make them simpler to transplant into humans.

The outcome of the transplantation: There is always a way

A critically ill man in Maryland, US, became the first person to get a pig heart in January 2022, but he passed only two months later from a porcine virus, a preventable illness that has been linked to catastrophic consequences on transplants. The high-profile transplants had raised public awareness of the field and made this an excellent time for public discourse and clinical research.
At the University of Alabama in Birmingham, kidneys from a gene-edited pig were put into a brain-dead patient. Given the enormous wait times for transplants caused by shortages, the accomplishment could help transform organ donation. These encouraging findings show how xenotransplantation can help with the global organ scarcity dilemma.
In July 2022, at NYU Langone Transplant Institute, the second significant advancement in pig-human heart xenotransplantation occurred with the successful implantation of two genetically altered pig hearts into humans, it was one of the most astounding sights, to see a pig heart thumping away and beating within a human chest.
To help the people with vision, a team of Swedish researchers developed a bioengineered cornea implants made of pig skin. In a small clinical investigation, the implants improved vision for 20 people with advanced keratoconus.
Several teams around the US are also preparing for clinical studies using pig organs in the following few years, including a team at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. They will Planning to utilise "blankets" made of pig skin to cover burn sufferers' skin temporarily.

Pigs that are ready for transplants might do much more than simply supply organs. They may eventually be employed to create the islet cells, collections of hormone-producing pancreatic cells required by diabetics. Trauma patients and those with persistent illnesses like sickle cell anemia, who frequently acquire antibodies against human blood cells because they have received so many transfusions, might get transfusions of pig blood. Pigs might even produce dopamine-producing cells that could be transferred into Parkinson's disease sufferers. Interventions based on gene therapy may be able to halt graft degradation. As more biotech businesses and research institutes strive to surpass rivals by enhancing performance or implementing innovative and disruptive technologies to overcome the problem of organ transplantation.