From which animal did the patient receive a liver [[transplant::An operation where an organ or body part is taken from a donor and planted in another person's body.]]?
A liver transplant is when doctors replace a sick liver with a healthy one from another person.
This can save a life if the liver isn't working right.Usually, the donor is another person. But in China, scientists did something special.
They put a pig's liver into a [[brain-dead::Describing a person whose brain has stopped functioning permanently and who is kept alive with the help of machines.A]] human patient. Generally, when we try to use organs from animals in people, the body doesn't accept them well.
So, the scientists did something smart to make sure the pig's liver would work on the person.
What did the scientists do?
The scientists [[gene-edited::The method that is used to change an organism’s DNA.]] the liver to delete numerous genes related to proteins that cause organ rejection. [[Gene::A piece of a cell's DNA that is inherited from its parents and controls a plant or animal's behaviour, growth, etc. DNA is the material in the cells of all living things that determines how they will look and function.]] editing is like using a magic pencil to fix small mistakes in your drawings, but for fixing things in people's and animals' bodies.
They did this to ensure the new liver would work well in the patient's body without any problems. After the surgery, they saw that the new liver was working fine.
To keep the new liver working well, they left the person's old liver inside along with the new one. This is the first time anyone has ever put a gene-edited pig liver into a person.
Even though the patient is still brain-dead, this transplant is a big deal in medicine.
A video on gene editing. Video by The Royal Society.
Why is it considered to be a big deal?
Every year, liver disease takes many lives around the world because there aren't enough organs for transplant. The recent successful liver transplant is important.
Scientists can learn from it and find easier ways to put pig livers into people. This could help save those suffering from liver diseases.
However, some people worry about using animal organs in humans. First, we'd need to breed many animals to get the organs we need, like hearts, kidneys, and livers.
Is it okay to kill these animals to help humans? And what if diseases pass from animals to people?
So, we need to do more research before we do this everywhere.
Quick Revision
The patient received a liver from a pig, not a human.
Scientists gene-edited the pig’s liver by removing many genes that normally cause the human body to reject animal organs.
They placed the pig liver into a brain-dead patient and kept the old human liver inside too; the new liver worked properly.
This is the first-ever gene-edited pig liver transplant into a person and could help solve the shortage of human organs in the future.
