First case of transplantation in a living person… Hospital "No sign of death as a result of transplantation" 

Dr. Tatsuo Kawai of Massachusetts General Hospital performed an operation on Richard Slayman, a 62-year-old American man, on the 16th, to transplant a kidney from a genetically modified pig./Massachusetts General Hospital

A man in his 60s in the United States who received a pig kidney transplant in March died two months after the operation. Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States, which performed the transplant, said there was no indication that he died from a kidney transplant.

The Associated Press reported on the 11th (local time) that Richard Slayman (62), a late-stage kidney disease patient who received a pig kidney transplant, died on March 16. At that time, the surgery was the first case of transplanting genetically modified pig kidney into a living person, and the U.S. biotech company eGenesis used the genetically modified pig kidney.

In October 2014, eGenesis announced in the international journal Nature that it had successfully transplanted genetically modified pig kidney into a monkey. With CRISPR-Cas9 technology, an enzyme protein that can be cut and replaced freely, the gene was corrected to fit a human before being transplanted. The monkey that received the kidney transplant survived for 758 days. Last year, researchers at New York University Medical School Langan Hospital transferred the gene-modified pig kidney to a brain-dead patient.

Massachusetts General Hospital transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney to Slayman, who was suffering from type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney disease. Slayman underwent a kidney transplant in December 2018, but five years later, he developed symptoms of organ failure. Since May last year, he has relied on dialysis and decided to transplant heterogeneous organs.

After the pig kidney transplant, the patient improved to the point where dialysis could be stopped. Initially, medical staff expected the pig kidney to function for at least two years, but the patient eventually died about seven weeks after the transplant. "We express our condolences for Slayman's death. There is no indication that the patient died as a result of the kidney transplant," the transplant team at Massachusetts General Hospital said. "Thanks to the doctors who led the heterogeneous transplant, the patient and his family were able to spend more than seven weeks together. It would have given hope to thousands of patients who needed transplants," Slayman's family said.

Reporter Hong Areum arhong@chosunbiz.com