A 53-year-old woman from Alabama has passed a major milestone this week to become the longest-living recipient of a pig organ transplant—healthy with her new kidney for 61 days. “I’m superwoman,” Towana Looney told The Associated Press, laughing about outpacing family members on long walks around New York City as she recovers. “It’s a new take on life.
” According to doctors, Looney’s recovery is a morale boost in the quest to make animal-to-human transplants a reality. In the past, only four others have received hugely experimental transplants of gene-edited pig organs—two hearts and two kidneys. However, none lived for more than two months.
“If you saw her on the street, you would have no idea that she’s the only person in the world walking around with a pig organ inside them that’s functioning,” said Dr. Robert Montgomery of NYU Langone Health, who led Looney’s transplant. According to Dr.
Montgomery, Looney’s kidney is working normally. Doctors hope she can now go back to Gadsden in Alabama from New York, where she has been temporarily living for post-transplant checkups, within a month. “We’re quite optimistic that this is going to continue to work and work well for, you know, a significant period of time,” he said.
Pig organs are being transplanted because of a shortage of human organs Scientists are now genetically altering pig organs to make them more human-like and address the severe shortage of transplantable human organs. Experts .
