Experimental use of pig liver to filter blood offers hope for patients | Hacker News Reader

Experimental use of pig liver to filter blood offers hope for patients

theguardian.com

54 pointsPaulHoule30 comments

It would be nice if there was a link to the paper, if there is one, what the genetic modifications were, and what the points of failure were.

Similar studies with human blood have been done by my mom’s research group (https://www.massgeneral.org/transplant/cts/research/pierson-...) with up to 850 minutes of perfusion with six genetic modifications to the pig liver. The main point of failure was that pig liver acts like a sponge for human platelets, which is not supposed to happen.

hEPCR.hTBM.hCD47.hHO-1 with donor clodronate and DDAVP treatment improves perfusion and function of GalTKO.hCD46 porcine livers perfused with human blood https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35166407/

The pig liver can also chop up human reb blood cells for unclear reasons:

Human erythrocyte fragmentation during ex-vivo pig organ perfusion https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35112383/

eGenesis in the Guardian article is a competitor to Revivicor, in the articles I linked.

My mom’s lab led in this area of research and when she was dying of cancer she wanted to be used for this type of experiment, but her wish wasn’t granted. It’s good to see that more people are willing to donate their body to this type of research. However it seems like the various groups working on xenotransplantation are more and more silo’d from each other instead of collaborating, which is sad.

Think how much a solution to organ donation would be worth. Cash kills collaboration®

I always find it interesting how humans and pigs seem more related than monkeys when it comes to our skin and other organs. I would expect a monkey liver would be a more obvious replacement.

Pigs have a diet similar to us so their digestive system and related metabolic systems are pretty similar.

That's one reason why their feces are so offensive compared to real herbivores like horses or cows or carnivores like cats and dogs.

Hah, you thought we were Mon'keigh but we are actually Ork.

They’re not more related, they’re just roughly the same size as human organs which makes them physically convenient. Their distance to humans is actually a desired trait because it decreases the probability of a zoonotic infection crossing into humans. Monkeys are susceptible to many more diseases that effect humans too, especially when invasively transplanted.

Using monkeys for transplantation is also completely impractical because they can’t be bred as fast as pigs which have shorter gestation periods and larger litters. Since there is already a huge industry revolving around pigs, its much simpler to breed them specifically for xenotransplantion

Primates are terrible to handle too. Try to stick them with a needle and they might grab it and stick you. I think the only primate which is (possibly) more agreeable than humans is the gorilla.

Believe it or not the higher primates can be trained to accept injections voluntarily. I've seen this in person with chimpanzees, orangutans, guenons, and gibbons. The general procedure involves a plastic sleeve attached to a barrier the primate sticks its arm into. The sleeve has a large port for a veterinary technician to prep the injection site. A handle at the end allows the animal to grasp a bar to keep the arm stationary. It can withdraw the arm at anytime. High value treats are offered. The veterinary technician announced loudly "sticking!" and in goes the needle. The announcement is for the animal's awareness to expect the pinch of pain from the needle. Once complete a "jackpot" of extremely high value treats are offered and accepted.

Interesting. How is an untrained primate helped to get past the initial unexpected pain before the treat is made available?

It is one of those things like an electric shock for which the reaction to the pain is much worse than the tissue damage. I was quite surprised to see how terrified a Percheron draft horse (who hated fences and would go over or through them if it could) was of the electric fence that felt like a tiny ‘pop” to me. When I touched it while standing in a puddle with rubber boots that had a hole in them I understood a little better…

Sounds like the horse really did feel significant pain but you didn't realize it at first because you had protection from shoes?

Somewhat. That horse really hated fences, which was one reason why he didn't fit in on our farm. If he really knew the shock was harmless and that freedom was one the other side I can picture him crashing right through it. But I'd imagine it hurts more with four feet pressed hard into the ground by a ton of weight.

Other horses really don't mind fences. Our neighbors got their SUV stuck driving around one Saturday night and then got a truck stuck trying to get it out (forgot the law of physics that says you should always tow a vehicle downhill if you at all can) and they came over looking for help. We took our tractor out there and cut a hole in the fence to get in to get them unstuck.

They never patched the hole but the horses they had stayed in for about a year and half until they discovered we had horses too after which they would come around to see our horses whenever they could and they learned they could just jump over the fence and come up to our place on the road.

They didn't have the right equipment to hitch them so I would take the horses to their place and tie them up with haystrings and such and leave angry messages on the answering machine.

At one point I changed my tack and decided to leave a nice message on their answering machine requesting that they pick up their horse. I offered them a pail of grain which would have let them catch the horse easily but instead they chased the horse around the outside of our electric fence which is bordered by hedgerows on both sides and after they got around to the other side I caught the horse immediately with the grain and handed it to them. After that they sold it right away.

I think the fact is that the similarity is "close enough", and for reasons unrelated to medical science, there are A LOT of pigs.

There is a reason Pacific islanders once used the term "Long Pig" for human flesh:)

yum

In the meantime, if you can (no religious issues, no health issues), register yourself as a donor.

Liver donation in particular is easy, because they can take just half of it and it will grow back.

> The University of Pennsylvania announced the novel experiment on Thursday, a different spin on animal-to-human organ transplants

This was done over thirty years ago...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/woman-saved-by-pig-l...

There is even a house md episode (S1E15 "Mob rules") utilizing it..... Am I missing something?

Good on the family for being clear minded enough to allow the experiment

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