UK fertility expert Lord Robert Winston told the press this week that the first human transplant of an organ grown in a humanized pig could take place within the next ten years; in fact the organs will probably be ready in the next two years but it will be take several years to test their safety, said Winston, who is Professor of Science and Society at Imperial College London and perhaps Britain’s most televised medical doctor.

According to a report by Mail Online, Winston told reporters at a press conference in London that he expects the first genetically modified piglets to be born early next year in the United States. The piglets will be bred from pig sperm that has been genetically modified to contain about six human genes that will partly “humanize” the tissue of the offspring in order to overcome rejection by the immune system of organ recipients.

Winston’s team at Hammersmith hospital in London had already produced four piglets from genetically modified sperm. This happened by accident when a male pig escaped from its pen, but following UK regulations the piglets had to be destroyed.

The six or so genes are introduced into the pig DNA so that the surfaces of the cells of organs like the liver, heart and kidneys have human version of proteins and not pig versions. If a human recipient’s immune system were to detect the pig versions of the proteins it would trigger a massive rejection reaction. If the immune system only detects human proteins it will not produce such a big reaction, is the theory, and any reaction that is produced can be managed with drugs as with current human to human transplants.

Winston said the main reason research like this is important and necessary is the fact that there are far more people waiting for organs that there are organs available for transplant.

“About one person goes on a transplant list somewhere in the world every 15 minutes,” Winston told reporters, but only one fifth of those waiting ever gets matched to a donor.

He said there was a “massive shortage” of organs for transplant. Nearly 8,000 people in the UK are on a waiting list; 7,000 of them waiting for a kidney, and the rest are waiting for new lungs, livers, and hearts.

Critics have said there is a huge risk of viruses in the humanized pigs passing over to humans, but Winston said the breed he was working with would be virus free and reared in a sterile environment. The pigs are also about one quarter of the size of most farm-bred pigs.

Last year, the Independent newspaper reported that when speaking at the British Association’s Science Festival in York, Winston said he had to move the pig breeding side of the research to the US because there was too much government red tape in the UK and Europe. He said there was more money, interest and less restrictive legislation in the US. He thinks this means that vital research like this will be forced out of the UK.

According to Sky News, Winston plans to continue the US side of the research via a spinoff company from Imperial College in London called Atazoa. Winston is a director of the company.

Sources: Sky News, Mail Online, Independent.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD.