From which animal did the patient receive a liver transplant?
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 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 liver to delete numerous genes related to proteins that cause organ rejection. Gene 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.
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.
