The patient’s survival breaks records, but his death raises crucial questions.
and seeking a miracle, David Bennett Sr. took a last-ditch gamble on Jan. 7, when he became the first human to be successfully transplanted with the heart of a pig. “It creates the pulse, it creates the pressure, it is his heart,” declared Bartley Griffith, director of the surgical team that performed the operation at the University of Maryland Medical Center. “We are thrilled, but we don’t know what tomorrow will bring us.
In recent years, however, advances in gene editing have opened a new possibility: modifying animals to provide user-friendly spare parts. Pigs could be ideal for this purpose, because they’re easy to raise and reach adult human size in months. Although there’s debate over the ethics of such organ farming, some biotech companies — including Revivicor, a subsidiary of Maryland-based United Therapeutics — are investing heavily in the prospect.
David Bennett snaps a photo with Bartley Griffith, the director of the surgical team that performed the procedure. Bennett suffered from cardiac failure so severe that he’d been on a heart-lung machine for over a month. His new heart functioned “even better than a human transplant,” says Muhammad Mohiuddin, scientific director of the University of Maryland’s cardiac xenotransplantation program.
At that point, the levels of PCMV were too low to require urgent action. But 43 days after the procedure, Bennett was struck by an infection of the lungs and airway. Although different pathogens were likely responsible for this problem, his PCMV counts were also rising. To fight off the invaders, the team administered a mix of antibodies known as intravenous immune globulin, or IVIG.
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