An Alabama woman passed a major milestone Saturday, becoming the oldest recipient of pig organ transplant – Her new kidney has been healthy and vibrant for 61 days and counting.
“I'm Superwoman,” Tovana Looney told The Associated Press, laughing that she could outrun her family on long walks in New York City as she continued to recover. “It’s a new perspective on life.”
Looney's recovery was energizing and a morale booster in our pursuit of making animal-to-human transplants a reality. Looney The fifth American given a Gene-edited pig organs.
“If you saw her on the street, you wouldn't know she's the only person in the world walking around with a functioning pig organ inside her body,” said Dr. Dr. Robert Montgomery said.
Montgomery said Looney's kidney function is “absolutely normal.” Doctors expect her to leave New York, where she is temporarily staying for post-transplant check-ups, in about a month to head home to Gadsden, Alabama.
“We're very optimistic that this will continue to work and work well for quite some time,” he said.
Why scientists are using pig organs for transplants
Scientists are genetically modifying pigs to make their organs more like humans, in an effort to address a severe shortage of transplantable human organs. There are more than 100,000 people on the transplant list in the United States, most of whom need kidneys, and thousands are dying while waiting.
Until now, pig organ transplants have been a case of “compassionate use,” with the Food and Drug Administration only allowing experiments in special circumstances for people who have no other options.
The handful of hospitals trying these approaches are sharing information about what works and what doesn't, in preparation for the world's first formal study of xenotransplantation, expected to begin sometime this year. United Therapeutics, the company that provided Looney's kidney, recently asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for permission to begin the trial.
Dr. Tatsuo Kawai of Massachusetts General Hospital said Looney's performance was a “very valuable experience.” He led the world's first pig kidney transplant last year and is working with eGenesis, another pig developer.
Kawai noted that Looney is much healthier than previous patients, so her progress will help inform next attempts.
“We have to learn from each other,” he said.
Tovana Rooney's Transplant Story
In 1999, Looney donated a kidney to her mother. She spent eight years on dialysis before doctors concluded she might never get a donated organ – her body developed extremely high levels of antibodies, abnormally primed to attack another human kidney.
So Rooney, 53, began experimenting with pigs. No one knows how it works in people who are “hypersensitive” to those overactive antibodies.
Montgomery's team, who was discharged from the hospital just 11 days after the Nov. 25 surgery, is closely tracking her recovery through blood tests and other measurements. About three weeks after the transplant, they detected subtle signs of the onset of rejection—signs they learned to look for thanks to a 2023 experiment in which pig kidneys worked for 61 days in the body of a deceased person. Bodies were donated for research.
Montgomery said they successfully treated Rooney and there has been no sign of rejection since then – weeks before she met the family behind the study of the deceased's body.
“It feels really good to know that the decision I made for NYU to use my brother was the right one and that it's helping people,” said Mary Miller-Duffy of Newburgh, N.Y.
Looney, in turn, is trying to help others, and Montgomery calls her an ambassador for those who contact her through social media to share their pain in the long wait for a transplant and their curiosity about pig kidneys.
One of them was considering a xenotransplant at another hospital but was scared and didn't know whether to proceed, she said.
“I don't want to convince him to do it or not do it,” Looney said.
Instead, she asked him if he was religious and urged him to pray, “Give up your faith and what your heart tells you.”
“I like talking to people, I like helping people,” she added. “I want to be a scientist with some educational work” to help others.
There's no telling how long Looney's new kidney will work, but if it fails, she could go back to dialysis.
“The truth is, we don't really know what the next hurdle is because this is the first time we've gotten to this point,” Montgomery said. “We have to continue to keep a close eye on her.”
