Patient who received first kidney transplant from a genetically modified pig He died at a Boston hospital seven weeks after surgery, the center said late Saturday.

Patient Ric Sleiman, 62 years old. he had end-stage renal disease at the time of transplantationMarch 16 at Massachusetts General Hospital after a four-hour operation that was considered a medical milestone.

The center said it had “no indication that (the death) was the result of a transplant,” according to a joint statement with Sleiman’s family, which talks about something “sudden” and highlights the work of the medical team that gave him a “second chance.”

“His enormous efforts in xenotransplantation (from animal to human) they gave our family seven more weeks with Rickand the memories we created during this time will remain in our minds and hearts,” his loved ones said.

The pig kidney was “edited with 69 genomes” using CRISPR-Cas9 technology, Consists of eliminating potentially harmful pig genes and then adding human genes to make it compatible with the human body.

In addition, scientists porcine endogenous retroviruses have been inactivated to minimize possible infections.

The donor pig was provided A Massachusetts company called eGenesis specializes in transplanting and modifying animal organisms to make them compatible with humans.

In recent months, several hospitals around the world, especially in the US, transplanted organs from pigs, such as kidneys and hearts, genetically modified, for people usually in a brain-dead situation.

Following the Sleiman case, a New York hospital performed the world’s second modified pig kidney transplant on a patient in April last year. woman 54 years old.

You might be interested > The first patient to receive a porcine kidney transplant has been discharged

More than 103,000 people are currently in waiting list receive organs only in the USA. About 17 die every day because they can’t get one.

(EFE)