VOA健康报道2023--Experiment Puts Pig’s Kidney in Brain-dead Human Body

Experiment Puts Pig’s Kidney in Brain-dead Human Body

Doctors in New York City have transplanted a pig's organ into a brain-dead man and watched as it performed normally for over a month.

Brain death is a state in which a person's brain no longer carries out even its most basic activities for life.

The pig kidney transplant is a step toward realizing the hopes of the New York team to try the operation on living patients.

Scientists around the country want to learn how to use animal organs to save human lives. Doctors believe bodies donated for research will help them develop the operation for patients.

The latest experiment was announced Wednesday by New York University Langone Health. It marks the longest time that a pig kidney has worked in a living or dead person. And the experiment is not over. Researchers will follow the kidney's performance for a second month.

"Is this organ really going to work like a human organ? So far, it's looking like it is," Dr. Robert Montgomery told The Associated Press. He is the director of NYU Langone's transplant institute.

"It looks even better than a human kidney," Montgomery said on July 14. On that day, he replaced a dead man's own kidneys with a single kidney from a genetically¹ engineered pig. He watched the replaced pig kidney immediately start producing urine.

The possibility that pig kidneys might one day reduce the shortage of transplantable organs persuaded the family of Maurice "Mo" Miller² to donate his body. He had died suddenly at 57 with a formerly³ undiagnosed brain cancer, which did not permit for usual organ donation.

"I struggled with it," his sister, Mary Miller-Duffy, told the AP about her decision. But he liked helping⁴ others and "I think this is what my brother would want. So, I offered my brother to them."

"He's going to be in the medical books, and he will live on forever," she added.

Attempts at successfully performing animal-to-human transplants, or xenotransplantation, have failed for many years. Often, the human immune system attacks the foreign tissue. Now researchers are using pigs genetically engineered so their organs are a better fit for human bodies.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering approval of some small but detailed⁵ studies of pig heart or kidney transplants in volunteer patients.

More than 100,000 patients are on the United States' transplant list.

The University of Maryland's Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin warns that it is not clear if a dead body reacts the same way as a live body to a pig organ. But he said the research educates the public about xenotransplantation, so "people will not be shocked."

Before this most recent experiment, NYU and a team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham tested a pig kidney transplant in a dead body for just two or three days. An NYU team has also tested transplanted pig hearts on donated bodies for three days of intense testing.

But how long should these experiments last? University of Alabama's Dr. Jayme Locke said that it is not clear. Among the moral questions is how long a family can emotionally deal with it. Because keeping a body alive after the brain has died is difficult.

In her own experiment, the donated body was stable enough that if the study wasn't required to end after a week, "I think we could have gone much longer, which I think offers great hope," she said.

Words in This Story

transplant – v. to perform a medical operation in which an organ or other part that has been removed from the body of one person is put into the body of another person

institute –n. an organization created for research or education

urine – n. waste liquid that collects in the bladder before leaving the body

undiagnosed – v. to recognize (a disease or illness) by examining someone

immune system – n. the system that protects the body from diseases and infections

 

stable – adj. not getting worse or likely to get worse

1 genetically   

adv.遗传上

参考例句：

• All the bees in the colony are genetically related. 同一群体的蜜蜂都有亲缘关系。
• Genetically modified foods have already arrived on American dinner tables. 经基因改造加工过的食物已端上了美国人的餐桌。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 基因与食物

2 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

3 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

5 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。