Gene Editing Could Make Pig Organs Safe For Use In Human Transplants

“It was kind of cool from two stand points”, said Church, who co-founded eGenesis, a biotech company that wants to produce modified pigs for organ transplantation.

Church first revealed his crew’s feat at an October 5 workshop on the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, which is learning the potential dangers and moral issues of human genome enhancing.

Still, the researchers believe that the technology will pave way for pig organs being used as substitute for human organs where no suitable donor organs could be found for patients who need a transplant.

The know-how has ignited an moral debate after biologists in China reported finishing up the primary experiment to change the DNA of human embryos. However, whole pig organs have not yet been used. However, it hasn’t yet been demonstrated if virus-free pig organs would be safe in humans.

Critics say it could herald an era of designer babies where parents not only select for health, but also for height, eye colour, sex and even sexuality.

Now, researchers say, they can simply remove the viruses native to pig cells, reviving the idea of xenotransplantation – using animal organs in humans.

The CRISPR gene-editing technology uses the Cas9 protein to guide RNA into a cell, allowing scientists to alter genes. Harvard Medical School researchers discovered 62 DNA sequences in pigs, which are the leftovers of a virus known as porcine endogenous retrovirus, or PERV, that has been proved infectious for human cells in lab experiments. Presently, pig coronary heart valves which have been scrubbed and depleted of pig cells are generally used to restore defective human coronary heart valves.

Harvard University’s George Church is a pioneer of the new CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique, which harnesses an ancient defense deployed by bacteria to destroy the DNA of viral invaders.

Prof Church, from Harvard University, used it to inactivate a retrovirus present in the pig cell line. They did not, although there was still a small amount of transmission. This virus has demonstrated the potential to infect humans, thus any organs with the DNA remnants could pose a threat to people.

‘But I think this changes the game completely’.

About 122,500 people in the United States alone are waiting for a life-saving organ transplant, and a few have argued that a steady supply of pig organs could make up the shortage, because they are similar in size to those of people.

“These two things, immune tolerance and now getting rid of all the retroviruses, means we have a clear path”.

‘Nonetheless, the results of the study are valuable both as a proof of principle and a potential step towards therapeutic advances in this area of much-needed research’.