An Alabama Woman Got a Gene-Edited Pig Kidney Transplant. Three Weeks Later, She Has ‘Never Felt Better’

An Alabama woman has “never felt better” after receiving a kidney from a genetically modified pig, reports the New York Times’ Roni Caryn Rabin. When she underwent transplant surgery last month, Towana Looney, 53, became just the third living person to receive a pig kidney in the United States.

So far, Looney is recuperating well. But doctors at NYU Langone Health are keeping a close eye on her, both to ensure she stays healthy and to study the outcomes of what is still a novel procedure.

In 1999, Looney donated one of her kidneys to her mother. However, when she became pregnant with her second child in 2002, she developed a condition known as preeclampsia, which causes uncontrollable high blood pressure.

High blood pressure can damage the kidneys, and in Looney’s case, it eventually led to the development of chronic kidney disease. (Doctors at NYU Langone Health note that it’s rare for living donors to develop kidney failure.)

In late 2016, Looney started dialysis, a treatment that removes excess fluid and waste from the blood when a person’s kidneys stop functioning properly. She was added to the waiting list for a human kidney transplant early the following year. As a living organ donor herself and an otherwise healthy person, Looney ranked high on the transplant list.

But finding a human kidney for her was “nearly impossible,” according to a statement from NYU Langone Health. Looney had high levels of antibodies in her blood that likely would have resulted in her body rejecting most transplanted kidneys.

She remembered watching a television story about researchers studying the potential uses of pig organs in humans. Looney was intrigued and asked her dialysis social worker to inquire as to whether she could possibly receive a pig kidney.

Looney got connected with Jayme Locke, who was then a transplant surgeon and the director of the Incompatible Kidney Transplant Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. (She’s since been named the director of the transplantation division at the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.)

Locke asked the Food and Drug Administration for permission to perform a xenotransplant—a transplant involving non-human tissues—on Looney. The FDA eventually approved the surgery under a program that allows doctors to perform experimental procedures on patients who have no other options.

The xenotransplant was undoubtedly risky, but Looney was willing to take her chances. The prior two patients to receive gene-edited pig kidney transplants both died later—the first patient died from sudden cardiac arrest that doctors said was unrelated to the transplant, and the second needed to have her pig kidney removed after her heart medication damaged it. They were both much sicker than Looney at the time of their procedures and suffered from serious heart disease, which she did not.

Finally, doctors scheduled Looney’s procedure for November 25. Locke performed the surgery with Robert Montgomery, her mentor and the director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute.

The pig kidney came from a company called Revivicor, which is a subsidiary of United Therapeutics Corporation. There, scientists had made ten genetic edits to the pig to increase the likelihood that Looney’s body would accept the foreign tissue. They added six human genes and removed a gene for a pig growth hormone receptor; they also removed three genes that could have triggered an immune response from Looney’s body.

Researchers had previously tested ten-edit pig kidneys in brain-dead human patients, so they had some knowledge about how Looney’s body might react, per Live Science’s Nicoletta Lanese. The two earlier transplant patients, meanwhile, had each received pig kidneys with just one genetic edit.

The procedure took seven hours. As soon as the surgeons stitched the pig kidney into place, it turned pink and began making urine—both good signs.

Looney was discharged from the hospital 11 days later, on December 6. Testing shows her new kidney is clearing the waste product creatinine from her blood. She’s off dialysis and her blood pressure is controlled.

For the next three months, she’ll stay in New York near the hospital so that doctors can perform daily check-ups. She’s also wearing monitors that track her blood pressure, heart rate and other bodily functions.

Doctors are watching for early warning signs that her body is rejecting the organ, which is more likely in pig-to-human transplants than in human-to-human transplants. If they see signs of rejection, they’ll likely use immune-suppressing drugs to help control the reaction.

Moving forward, doctors at NYU Langone Health hope to launch a formal clinical trial of ten-edit pig kidneys next year. In the future, they also hope to compare ten-edit pig kidneys to single-edit kidneys.

“Transplant is one of the few therapies that can cure a complex disease overnight, yet there are too few organs to provide a cure for all in need,” Locke says in the statement. “The thought that we may now have a solution to the organ shortage crisis for others who have languished on our waiting lists invokes the most welcome of feelings: pure joy.”

Looney, meanwhile, is enjoying life with a functioning kidney. Her appetite has returned, she’s able to complete household tasks with ease and she’s dreaming about the future—including, hopefully, a trip to Disney World.

“It’s like a new beginning,” Looney tells the Associated Press’ Lauran Neergaard.

She’s also encouraging other dialysis patients to consider whether a pig kidney transplant may be right for them. An estimated 35.5 million adults in the United States are living with chronic kidney disease, and more than 90,000 patients are on the waiting list for a kidney transplant. In 2023, roughly 27,000 patients received human kidney transplants, according to the National Kidney Foundation.

“I want to give courage to those out there on dialysis—I know it’s not easy,” Looney said at a news conference on Tuesday, as reported by Live Science. “And it’s not the only option. There’s hope.”

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.