Towana Looney became the first living person in the world to get a kidney from a new kind of genetically modified pig last month. Health correspondent Rob Stein got exclusive access to be in the operating room.Towana is a 53-year-old grandmother from Gadsden, Ala. She's been on dialysis for four hours a day, three days a week since 2016. Her immune system would reject a human kidney. So the Food and Drug Administration made an exception to its usual clinical study requirements to allow Looney this new kind of pig kidney. But the procedure is controversial. Interested in more environmental stories? Email us at [email protected]. We'd love to hear from you!Listen to every episode of Short Wave sponsor-free and support our work at NPR by signing up for Short Wave+ at plus.npr.org/shortwave.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: What is the groundbreaking kidney transplant discussed in this episode?
You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
Hey Shortwavers, Regina Barber here and I'm here with my colleague, NPR health correspondent and awesome guy, Rob Stein. Hey Rob.
Hey Gina.
I hear that you've been working on this really interesting story for the past year.
Yeah, yeah. I've been following the developments of a biotech company called Revivacor that's been moving towards a very ambitious goal, and that is to use cloned, genetically modified farm animals to provide organs for transplants for humans.
Okay, so you're saying farm animals. So there's like a farm just full of cloned animals.
Yeah, yeah. In fact, I went to visit this farm. I drove down a road through the Blue Ridge Mountains in southwest Virginia to visit the Rivercore Farm back in February. This farm, it has like 22 buildings and around 300 pigs. We had to change into hospital scrubs before going inside to protect the pigs.
They're really careful to make sure visitors don't bring in any pathogens that could infect the pigs. When we went into the buildings, we stepped into these tubs of disinfecting fluid to sterilize our boots. And then I got to see these cloned, genetically modified adult female pigs.
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Chapter 2: Who is Tawana Looney and why is her case significant?
Chapter 3: What are genetically modified pigs and how do they relate to organ transplants?
Yeah, I was inside the OR for the entire operation. And, you know, Gina, this is, I should say, very controversial in a lot of ways. I talked to bioethicists and scientists who have a lot of concerns, you know, concerns about the pigs, about the patients themselves who are desperate for anything, and even the possibility that this could cause a pandemic by spreading pig viruses to people.
So today on the show, the first living person to receive a new kind of genetically modified pig kidney and what that could mean for the future of transplant medicine. You're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
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