Johns Hopkins Medicine will receive $21.4 million overt the next two years to advance xenotransplantation and reduce transplant shortages.
Xenotransplantation is the process of putting animal organs into humans.
The agreement that was announced on Wednesday will support pre-clinical studies conducted in collaboration with United Therapeutics to advance the use of genetically modified pigs whose kidneys are more compatible for transplantation than non-modified animals.
This will enable a reduction of risk of immune system attacks and help better avoid organ rejection and failure and increase people's chances for long-term survival.
We are tremendously excited about what we will learn through this new research endeavor at Johns Hopkins Medicine,” says Andrew Cameron, surgeon-in-chief and director of the Department of Surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Although we have a highly successful kidney transplant program, we’ve been limited — like other medical institutions — by the shortage of available human donor organs. Hopefully, xenotransplantation will soon be able to join other strong efforts at Johns Hopkins to address this challenge, such as our nondirected [altruistic] and directed [designated recipient] living donor programs.”
The investigation of of using pig organs in humans has been spanning worldwide for decades, but the FDA has not yet approved the transplants for clinical use.
“Over the next two years, our research team hopes to improve the strategies and techniques that have made genetically modified pig kidneys for transplantation so promising to this point, and then take them to the level where human clinical trials can begin,” says Kazuhiko Yamada, professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “Then, hopefully, we can finally realize that promise.”
The next approach to be studied under the agreement is to "teach" the human immune system to recognize the donated pig organ as "self."
“With the new research agreements, we can help complete the critical pre-clinical work in animals that the FDA has requested before the first clinical trials of genetically modified pig kidney xenografts in humans can begin,” explains Cameron. “Those studies in the near future — in which Johns Hopkins Medicine hopes to be involved as a trial site — could potentially lead to xenotransplantation becoming a viable way to help alleviate the nation’s transplant organ shortage, not only for kidneys, but for other organs as well,” Yamada said.
