[HN Gopher] Experimental use of pig liver to filter blood offers...
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Experimental use of pig liver to filter blood offers hope for
patients
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 45 points
Date : 2024-01-24 16:06 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| kwanbix wrote:
| In the meantime, if you can (no religious issues, no health
| issues), register yourself as a donor.
| todd3834 wrote:
| 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.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| 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.
| taneq wrote:
| Hah, you thought we were Mon'keigh but we are actually Ork.
| throwup238 wrote:
| 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
| PaulHoule wrote:
| 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.
| LiquidPolymer wrote:
| 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.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| Interesting. How is an untrained primate helped to get
| past the initial unexpected pain before the treat is made
| available?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| 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...
| acchow wrote:
| Sounds like the horse really did feel significant pain
| but you didn't realize it at first because you had
| protection from shoes?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| 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.
| andrewla wrote:
| I think the fact is that the similarity is "close enough", and
| for reasons unrelated to medical science, there are A LOT of
| pigs.
| strangattractor wrote:
| There is a reason Pacific islanders once used the term "Long
| Pig" for human flesh:)
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| 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.
| strangattractor wrote:
| Think how much a solution to organ donation would be worth.
| Cash kills collaboration(r)
| yukkuri wrote:
| Good on the family for being clear minded enough to allow the
| experiment
| BlackLotus89 wrote:
| > 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?
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