Figuring out how to save the lives of people waiting for an organ transplant requires taking some chances—and Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of the NYU Langone Transplant Institute, has been setting a number of new standards in the field. In his latest milestone, he transplanted a pig kidney into a woman with kidney failure, and the organ worked for a record four months. The donor pig was specially bred to contain certain genetic changes that made its kidney less pig-like and more human, which reduced the chances it would be rejected by the patient’s immune system. While the patient still ended up rejecting the organ, the fact that she was able to come off of dialysis for four months (which she has now resumed) is an encouraging advance, says Montgomery.
The mission is personal. Montgomery has a genetic condition that compromises his heart function, and in 2018, he received a human heart from an unusual source—a donor with hepatitis C. People with this infection have long been denied the chance to donate their organs, but Montgomery researched ways to suppress the virus in recipients using antiviral medications. When his own heart was failing, he became one of the first people in the U.S. to put his work to the test and receive a heart from a heroin addict who was positive for hepatitis C.
With his new heart, it didn’t take long for Montgomery to return to the operating room—this time turning to genetically modified animals as a new source for organs for desperate patients, like himself, who need them.