Time Table for technology
2019 Date when it is FDA approved to make organs in pigs that can be transplanted into humans.
Qbot
http://www.redorbit.
com/news/health/1598839/researchers_say_pig_organ_transplants_only_a_decade_away/index.html
Posted on: Friday, 7 November 2008, 13:40 CST
A professor at Imperial College, London, said on Wednesday that organs from pigs could be widely
available for transplanting into patients within a decade.
Kidneys would most likely be the first organs suitable for transplanting and are expected to be ready
within three years and, if tests are successful, their use could be widespread by 2018.
Pigs would be kept as breeding stock to provide organs “to order” and to slash waiting times for
thousands of people needing transplants.
Professor Winston and his collaborator, Carol Readhead, of the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, are attempting to breed pigs that have been genetically modified so that porcine organs are
accepted by the human body instead of being immediately rejected.
The researchers say they are close to modifying the genetic make-up of pigs to “humanize” their organs
and make animal-to-human transplants possible.
The humanization process of the organs could be achieved by breeding genes into the pigs, probably
by injecting them directly into the parent boar’s testicles, researchers said.
Anyone receiving organs from a pig would have to take immune suppressant drugs for the rest of their
lives, but no more than those who received organ transplants from other people.
“It is comparatively easy to bring about such genetic modification in mice, but the process is much
harder in pigs and other large animals,” said Readhead.
A “mini-pig” was selected for the research because they are big enough to have organs of a similar size
to adult human beings.
Due to their similarity in physiological make-up, pigs are seen as ideal for xenotransplantation, or animal-
to-human transplant, because they get many of the same diseases, such as diabetes.
“Our interest was to try to make transgenic pigs for biomedical research to understand human diseases
better and eventually to try to make their organs suitable for xenotransplantation,” said Redhead.
According to Winston, organs that might be transplantable could be ready “within two to three years”
and on the basis that research went smoothly they would be fully licensed and tested in as little as ten
years
Next
2019 Date when it is FDA approved to make organs in pigs that can be transplanted into humans.
Qbot
http://www.redorbit.
com/news/health/1598839/researchers_say_pig_organ_transplants_only_a_decade_away/index.html
Posted on: Friday, 7 November 2008, 13:40 CST
A professor at Imperial College, London, said on Wednesday that organs from pigs could be widely
available for transplanting into patients within a decade.
Kidneys would most likely be the first organs suitable for transplanting and are expected to be ready
within three years and, if tests are successful, their use could be widespread by 2018.
Pigs would be kept as breeding stock to provide organs “to order” and to slash waiting times for
thousands of people needing transplants.
Professor Winston and his collaborator, Carol Readhead, of the California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, are attempting to breed pigs that have been genetically modified so that porcine organs are
accepted by the human body instead of being immediately rejected.
The researchers say they are close to modifying the genetic make-up of pigs to “humanize” their organs
and make animal-to-human transplants possible.
The humanization process of the organs could be achieved by breeding genes into the pigs, probably
by injecting them directly into the parent boar’s testicles, researchers said.
Anyone receiving organs from a pig would have to take immune suppressant drugs for the rest of their
lives, but no more than those who received organ transplants from other people.
“It is comparatively easy to bring about such genetic modification in mice, but the process is much
harder in pigs and other large animals,” said Readhead.
A “mini-pig” was selected for the research because they are big enough to have organs of a similar size
to adult human beings.
Due to their similarity in physiological make-up, pigs are seen as ideal for xenotransplantation, or animal-
to-human transplant, because they get many of the same diseases, such as diabetes.
“Our interest was to try to make transgenic pigs for biomedical research to understand human diseases
better and eventually to try to make their organs suitable for xenotransplantation,” said Redhead.
According to Winston, organs that might be transplantable could be ready “within two to three years”
and on the basis that research went smoothly they would be fully licensed and tested in as little as ten
years
Next
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